Santa Margarita Gets Dressed Down in State Title Rematch

With a winter dance scheduled later Saturday night, Santa Margarita High’s fans and a couple of statisticians attended the state Division II girls’ volleyball final dressed in tuxedos and formal gowns at Cypress College.

Unfortunately for the Eagles, their opponents, Mountain View St. Francis, came dressed to kill--and block, and most importantly, dig.

St. Francis used an airtight defense in the last three games and defeated Santa Margarita, 7-15, 15-7, 15-3, 15-6. It was the record-tying fourth state girls’ volleyball title overall for St. Francis and their second victory in a row over the Eagles.

Corona del Mar is the only other team to win four state titles (1984, ‘90, ’92 and ‘93).

St. Francis (37-1) had 66 team digs to Santa Margarita’s 20, and seemingly got to every Eagle kill attempt to disrupt Santa Margarita’s hitters.

“It’s frustrating, yeah,” said Sarah Ballog, who had nine kills and four blocks for the Eagles. “But it challenges you as a hitter, where you’ve got to find different ways to hit. They only have six players, so there has to be open floor somewhere.”

Unfortunately for the Eagles (19-6), they didn’t find it often after the first game.

After Santa Margarita took a 5-0 lead in Game 2 on a red card issued to St. Francis Coach Dave Gambelin, the Lancers changed their serving strategy.

“We came in with the idea to serve them short,” Gambelin said. “But they were passing nails off that, so we tried to get some deeper.”

It worked. “They definitely made us change the way we had to play our game,” Santa Margarita Coach Eddie Rapp said. “We got out of our passing rhythm. Then we were fighting, trying to get it back, and its tough to do against a great defensive team.”

It was the second consecutive year that Santa Margarita has advanced to the state final. The Eagles lost to St. Francis last year, 15-12, 15-5, 15-3.

“Any time you have a second shot at something, you’re going to be wiser,” Rapp said. “We came in ready to play. Today, I don’t think we failed, we just didn’t get the win.”

Lauren Heri had eight kills and six digs for Santa Margarita. Christy Pfrenzinger also had eight kills and setter Anna Mosich had 24 assists.