Taking a Different Path Back to the Top

Laguna Beach can boast of one of the most successful boys’ volleyball programs in Southern Section history, but this season, come playoff time, the Artists competed in the section’s lowest level, Division III.

And thanks to the section’s regionalized playoff format, Laguna Beach, the division’s top-seeded team, met another traditional power, Corona del Mar, in Friday’s quarterfinals and was eliminated in five games.

The two schools have combined to win seven top-division section titles. Laguna Beach has won five titles and appeared in seven finals during the 24-year history of section boys’ volleyball championships.

So what are these schools doing playing in the lowest division?

The common perception was that both programs needed to rebuild, so they opted to participate in the lowest enrollment division for which they qualified.

“The kids wanted to play Division I,” said Shawn Patchell, Laguna Beach’s first-year coach. “There weren’t a lot of expectations this year and playing in Division III was a good decision at the time.

“We weren’t even supposed to win league, but we did. It’s been a good season.”

Good, but championship expectations are the norm at Laguna Beach.

“Still, when was the last time Laguna won a title?” Athletic Director Greg Marshall said. “The reality is we didn’t think we’d have much success in Division I. We did what we thought would be best for the kids.”

Corona del Mar Coach Steve Conti echoed those sentiments.

“Sure we’d like to get this program back to where it used to be,” Conti said, “but you have to start having some success and build on it. We’re just working within the new system.”

When Conti took over at Corona del Mar last year, the Sea Kings missed the playoffs. There were barely enough players for a junior varsity team and there was no frosh-soph team.

But this season, Corona del Mar has advanced to Wednesday’s semifinals, and the Sea Kings’ junior varsity team went undefeated under former Laguna Beach assistant Bill Christiansen.

At Laguna Beach, Marshall’s decision to play in Division III ruffled a few feathers because of the school’s rich volleyball tradition.

The Artists won their first section title in 1975 and another in ’77. Coach Bill Ashen led Laguna Beach to three consecutive top-division titles from 1981-83, boasting section players of the year Lance Stewart (‘81), Rudy Dvorak (‘82) and Leif Hanson (‘83).

But the last time Laguna Beach reached the Division I final was in 1994, when it lost to defending champion Huntington Beach. The coach that led them to the ’94 final, Michael Soylular, is no longer at Laguna Beach.

“Interest in boys’ volleyball is down at Laguna,” Marshall said. “We barely have enough players to field full JV and frosh-soph teams. And this season, we had a brand new coach and we thought we wouldn’t be as competitive as we were.

“Sure, I’d love to be back at Division I, and I am taking some heat for this decision.”

Marshall said Stewart is among those who feel Laguna Beach should always be playing in Division I regardless of the new enrollment rules (schools may choose to play in a higher division, but not a lower one).

“The sport is a lot different now,” Marshall said. “There are more teams playing, there are bigger schools . . . But that’s the way it is now. We’re playing by new rules.”

But there are coaches around the county who have chosen to live--or die--by the old rules.

Dan Glenn, in his 11th season as coach at Newport Harbor, led the Sailors to the Division 4-A title in 1987 and has always said he will keep his team in Division I, though the school qualifies for a lower-enrollment division.

“I don’t think this playoff format change is good for the sport,” Glenn said. “It’s change for the sake of change. Everything was fine with the volleyball playoffs.”

This season, the Sailors had one senior on the team and lost a close four-game match to third-seeded Capistrano Valley in the second round of the Division I playoffs.