El Toro’s ‘Worst Match’ Good Enough to Win

In what Coach Mike Jagd called “the worst match we played all year,” El Toro swept Palos Verdes Peninsula, 15-10, 15-5, 15-6, in a Southern Section Division I boys’ volleyball quarterfinal match Friday at El Toro.

Jagd’s Chargers frustrated him on two fronts: physical and mental. “I’m trying to think who set well, who hit well--nobody did,” he said. The night’s top performer, outside hitter Ryan Mariano, had only 13 kills. The Chargers ended the match with 13 serving errors.

“And the other team was real obnoxious,” Jagd said. “They were talking through the net, and purposely bumped my assistant coach during changeovers. But my guys let it affect them.

“This late in the year we can have a breakdown like that--what if we go up to play (North Hollywood) Harvard-Westlake, where everyone will be rooting against us? I’m real concerned about that,” he said.

However, El Toro (18-1) will to be concerned about Huntington Beach in the semifinals. The Oilers beat Harvard-Westlake in five games.

Peninsula (14-3), which mustered only 21 kills in the match, led the first game until the Chargers tied the score, 10-10, on Mariano’s ace and did not look back. Of Peninsula’s 30 errors, 12 occurred in the first game.

The second and third games weren’t so much a demonstration of El Toro’s skills as an example of how to bungle: The Chargers finished with 27 errors.