Mater Dei Feeling Good About Breakthrough Effort in Las Vegas

Silver medals. Second-place ribbons. Runner-up plaques.

Santa Ana Mater Dei has plenty of them. Too many, in fact.

Mater Dei has finished second in four top-notch tournaments the last three seasons and was runner-up in the last two Southern Section Division I-A girls’ volleyball championships.

Here’s a first, however: The streak of seconds finally ended at the Las Vegas Durango tournament.

Mater Dei defeated Clovis Buchanan, 15-11, to win the 16-team tournament on Saturday.

“We needed to get over the hump and figure out what it feels like to win something,” Coach Craig Pazanti said. “It’s a good psychological experience for everybody.”

Middle blocker Whitney Pavlik was the tournament most valuable player and outside hitter Breegan Mulligan, who has committed to Pepperdine, was an all-tournament selection despite being hobbled by a sprained right ankle.

Outside hitter Ashley Bayer was also all-tournament for the Monarchs (14-2), who defeated Long Beach Wilson, San Clemente and Manhattan Beach Mira Costa on the way to the championship.

“I’ve been waiting for that breakthrough,” Pazanti said. “This was a great growing-up experience.”

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Club only: She is among the top players in the Southland, but Staci Venski won’t be appearing in any high school matches.

Venski, who attends Calabasas High and has committed to USC, will play only club volleyball for a second consecutive season.

Venski, a 6-foot-3 middle blocker, trained with the U.S. junior national team throughout the summer and returned Sept. 7 from the Junior World Championships in the Dominican Republic.

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Possible rally: The City Section does not have rally-scored fifth games, but might add them for the playoffs. Section administrator Cheryl Barkovich said City officials could introduce the concept to the Interscholastic Athletic Committee for ratification on Oct. 22.

Barkovich said that about 65% of City coaches favored rally scoring in a survey conducted last year.

Southern Section playoffs will have rally-scored fifth games for the first time. Individual leagues in the Southern Section have the option of introducing rally-scored fifth games in league play.

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Keeping tabs: Former Alta Loma standout Erin Sebbas is one of the top players for Arizona, ranked No. 3 in the coaches’ poll, its highest all-time ranking.

Sebbas, a 6-foot-2 senior middle blocker, had 10 kills against Oregon on Thursday and six Friday against Oregon State.

Arizona (7-0, 2-0 in Pac-10 play) is coached by Dave Rubio, who was an assistant at Cal State Northridge and was head coach at Granada Hills, Chatsworth and Westlake Village Westlake highs.

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Sneak peek: There’s no rest for the weary. Or for Mater Dei. The Monarchs played in top-shelf tournaments the last two weekends and have a rocky nonleague schedule this week--at Newport Harbor on Tuesday and at home against improved Los Alamitos on Thursday.

“With this group of seniors, I wanted to put them in position to play for the fictitious national championship,” Pazanti said. “It’s a schedule I won’t do again until I have a group like this.”