Highland Ends Slumber After Bird’s Wake-up Call

Maybe Highland High’s Sean Crosier should get sick every day.

Maybe the Bulldog boys’ team should start every volleyball match with a 7-0 deficit.

Or the Bulldogs could run 25 sets of punitive wind sprints more often, as they did Tuesday thanks to a poor practice.

Whatever it was, Highland crunched Canyon, 15-11, 15-3, 15-9, in a nonleague match Wednesday at Canyon.

Earlier in the day, Crosier fell asleep in his physics class, an event blamed on a head cold, not the course material.

But Crosier rebounded with 15 kills, including eight in the first game, to help wipe out Canyon’s early seven-point lead.

Highland went on a 30-7 run and found itself up in games, 2-0.

“Every time you play Canyon, it’s intense,” Crosier said. “You just want to bang some balls.”

Canyon (3-2) looked timid during the run by Highland (3-0).

“Volleyball’s an aggressive game and you’ve got to play it that way,” Canyon Coach Spencer MacCuish said. “Mentally, we didn’t have it tonight.”

Highland didn’t have it Tuesday at practice.

The Bulldogs were so bad that Coach Mike Bird ordered some extra conditioning.

“That was the first time I blew up on them,” Bird said. “I think a couple of guys were shocked.”

Apparently, shock therapy works.

Tom Haight threw down 12 kills for the Bulldogs, who have won six in a row against Canyon.

Unlike the past few years, this will be the only meeting between the teams, no longer Golden League rivals. During the off-season, Canyon moved to the Foothill League, which begins its first season of volleyball next week.

“I’d like to play them again,” said Jason McMillen, who had seven kills for Canyon. “I’d like to at least beat them once.”