Alemany No Surprise to Powerful San Marcos

Alemany High, unseeded yet unflappable, finally had its run through the playoffs halted.

San Marcos eliminated Alemany, 15-10, 7-15, 15-3, 15-7, and ended the high-school career of UCLA-bound outside hitter-setter Richard Nelson in a Southern Section Division II boys’ volleyball semifinal Wednesday night at Dos Pueblos.

Alemany (11-7), which knocked out three league champions en route to its first appearance in the semifinals, simply ran into a better team.

“We far exceeded a lot of expectations,” Coach Jamie Quaglino of Alemany said. “The seniors wouldn’t say we’re not good enough. We ran up against a good team.”

Nelson, who has signed with UCLA, delivered 20 kills for Alemany.

He reinjured his pinky at practice Tuesday, a problem that kept him out of seven matches, but he didn’t seem overly bothered against second-seeded San Marcos (21-2).

In fact, Nelson was the driving force in the second game, serving three consecutive aces to spark a 10-0 run for Alemany.

But the Indians failed to capitalize after tying the match and went down quickly in the third and fourth games.

“I thought we had them,” Nelson said. “We had all that momentum . . . and, I don’t know. We came out flat in the third game and they were just more up-tempo.”

San Marcos’ best player last year, Brook Billings, was recently selected the men’s volleyball national freshman of the year at USC, but the Royals seem to be doing just fine this season.

Peter Jordan had 25 kills, Dan Matheson had 23 kills and Darin Dorian added 17 for the Royals.

“We had four guys playing in Brook’s shadow the whole time he was the principle hammer,” Coach Jon Lee of San Marcos said. “Now it’s their time.”

San Marcos will play top-seeded Redondo on Saturday at Cypress College.