PREP ROUNDUP : Barons Earn Upset Victory in Volleyball

Fountain Valley upset Laguna Beach, 15-9, 15-10, in the Orange County boys’ volleyball championships Saturday at Marina High.

The fourth-ranked Barons (4-1) used powerful hitting and strong play from the front line to defeat the third-ranked Artists in the best two-of-three tournament.

With No. 1 Huntington Beach and No. 2 San Clemente bumped from the tournament early, Fountain Valley advanced to the semifinals with a 15-11, 15-5 victory over eighth-ranked Irvine. Laguna Beach advanced by beating No. 9 Woodbridge, 15-12, 15-10.

Fountain Valley’s frontline held Laguna Beach hitters in check. Senior Ed Ratledge and Dave Arvesen combined for five blocks and forced the Artists to make mistakes. Laguna Beach was plagued by bad passing and in the second game, the Artists committed nine unforced errors.

“We’ve got a lot of good hitters and so do they,” Fountain Valley Coach Lori Biller said. “It was a battle of hitters today. We just had one or two more than they did.”

In the first game, Laguna Beach took the lead, 4-3, but Fountain Valley, which returned all six starters from last season, scored three consecutive points to take a 6-4 lead and kept it the rest of the game.

Senior outside hitter Chris Kosty put down seven kills in the first game and added a stuff block. Kosty finished the match with 14 kills and Ratledge added 10 and was named to the all-tournament team.

The Barons took an 8-1 lead in the second game. The Artists slowly climbed back into the game behind the hitting of senior outside hitter Dan Styles and junior middle blocker Trevor Whalley to pull within three at 12-9.

Senior Brian Myers put the game away, serving the final three points as Styles hit match point into the net.

“We knew they would set (Styles),” Biller said, “We couldn’t stop them completely, but we stopped them enough to win the match.”

Senior setter Kurt Seckington was named tournament most valuable player and had 41 assists for Fountain Valley in the championship match. Styles finished with 14 kills for Laguna Beach and was named to the all-tournament team, along with teammate setter Kurt Nelson.