St. Bonaventure Gets Aced Out by La Reina

They came, they served, they won their 45th league match in succession.

All in a night’s work for the La Reina High girls’ volleyball team, which dispatched St. Bonaventure, this year’s touted challenger in the Tri-Valley League, 15-5, 15-0, 15-9, Tuesday night at La Reina.

The Regents served 10 aces, or exactly nine more than St. Bonaventure, and took a nice-sized step toward their fifth consecutive league title.

The arrival of setter-outside hitter-captain Alyssa Hain, who attended her uncle’s funeral before the match, was somewhat in doubt.

“It was getting close, in terms of time,” La Reina Coach Don Hyatt said.

But Hain arrived, threw down seven kills and closed out the match with three aces.

“All week I’ve been thinking about this game,” Hain said. “It kind of took my mind off everything else.”

St. Bonaventure (5-2, 0-1 in league) had problems with its attack.

After the first two games, the Seraphs had 17 hitting errors and eight kills. Game two (three kills, eight errors) was especially forgettable.

“It can’t get any worse than that,” St. Bonaventure Coach Steve Berk said. “We got beat, 15-0.”

Behind three kills by Jamie Behm and Clare McNamara, St. Bonaventure picked it up in the third game and took a 5-2 lead.

But La Reina (9-0, 1-0) showed why this year’s version might be the best yet: Balance.

La Reina’s outside attack is an obvious strength, thanks to Hain, Aimee Thompson and Tory Fithian.

In the third game, the Regents turned to the middle, where Kindrea Cuccia came up with six of her eight kills and Kristin Kruer, who sang the national anthem before the match, had two of her four block solos.

“With our size, there’s nobody big enough to dominate physically with size and power,” Hyatt said. “We have to spread it around.”

The goal for La Reina, the sixth-ranked Division IV team in the state, is simple. The past two years, the Regents have lost in the Southern Section quarterfinals. At the very least, they want to reach the semifinals.

“If they want a shot at a state or [Southern Section] championship, they’ve got to finish people off,” said Hyatt, who especially liked what he saw from his team in the third game.

“You can’t let a team up when they’re down.”

Said Hain: “I think we can do pretty good in the future.”