Santa Margarita Tops Highland

Even though its performance was less-than-perfect Tuesday, Santa Margarita still had little problem defeating visiting Bakersfield Highland, 15-2, 17-15, 15-4 in the first round of the Division II State girls’ volleyball playoffs.

After dominating the opening game, the Eagles (26-7) took a considerate step back in the second when Coach Eddie Rapp emptied his bench early in order to give his players a wake-up call.

“In the state playoffs you need to come out and play your best, and you’ve got to be ready to go in,” said Rapp, whose team will host the Sanger/South Torrance winner Saturday. “We had a little bit of a letdown today. It grabbed our attention a little bit.”

The Eagles got out to a 12-3 Game 2 lead with most of their starters on the bench before the Scots (13-14) got their block--and confidence--going to tie the game at 14-14.

The Eagles kept their poise, though, as Anna Mosich set Michelle Davis and Chrissy Bloomgren for consecutive points to help put away the second game.

The game was a good test for the Eagles, who otherwise controlled both the serve and sideout for most of the night.

“It definitely wasn’t our best match, we can play a lot better than that,” said Davis, who had a match-high 19 kills.