Sailors stunned in second round
IRVINE — The day before Newport Harbor High played at Beckman in the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division 1 boys’ volleyball playoffs, the host school asked the Sailors if they would like to move the match up an hour. Newport Harbor agreed to play at 6 p.m., instead of the original start time of 7.
The reason behind starting Thursday’s contest an hour early had to do with Beckman getting the gym ready for AP testing the following day. Before those exams, the Patriots aced their hardest test on the court.
Beckman upset No. 3-seeded Newport Harbor, 18-25, 25-23, 26-24, 21-25, 15-6, and qualified for the Division 1 quarterfinals for the first time in the program’s history.
“We hadn’t stepped up and beaten a team that was supposed to beat us,” Beckman Coach Darin McBain said. “[Against] someone ranked higher than we were, we’d always fallen just a little bit short, so to step up and do it at this time was unbelievable. This is something that this team has needed. We know we’re good. We know we can beat anybody. Then [the question is] just when are we going to do it? We finally did it.”
The Patriots (31-5) became the second Pacific Coast League team to knock off Newport Harbor (22-8) in seven days. The first was Corona del Mar in the Battle of the Bay rivalry last Friday at Newport Harbor.
McBain attended the regular-season finale between the Back Bay archrivals, knowing his Patriots could possibly meet the Sailors in the second round because the section released the playoff bracket almost five hours before CdM and Newport Harbor played. The match didn’t last long, the Sea Kings swept in dominating fashion.
“I walked out of there feeling like they were beatable,” McBain said of the Sailors. “They’ve been [ranked] No. 1 or No. 2 in [Orange County] all year, and they’ve beaten Huntington [Beach] and they’ve beaten some good teams, so to be able to come back and tell my team, ‘If we play at a high level, we will win,’ and mean it [was big].”
McBain said he meant it, unlike a year ago when the Patriots ran into powerhouse Huntington Beach in the second round and lost in three sets. Huntington Beach and Newport Harbor shared the Sunset League title this year, and this time Beckman took down a Sunset League champion.
Spencer Olivier, a junior outside hitter committed to Long Beach State, led the way for Beckman with 17 kills, five solo blocks, one block assist and one service ace. The team’s middle blockers, Josh Keogh and Jack Mathews, played well, finishing with 11 and 10 kills, respectively.
In the decisive fifth set, Beckman scored eight of the first nine points. Keogh started things off by stuffing Ethan Talley, and then Olivier recorded a kill, before Newport Harbor’s Cole Pender cut the deficit to 2-1 on one of his 26 kills. After a Keogh kill, McBain’s son, Austin, a setter, blocked Pender’s shot and Olivier followed that up by turning away Spencer Lawrence.
Olivier and Mathews teamed up to block Lawrence, and after Pender misfired wide, Newport Harbor called a timeout. Coach Rocky Ciarelli didn’t look happy. He was still fuming from a controversial call made late in Game 3 that allowed Beckman to tie it at 23-23, instead of putting the Sailors at set point.
The referee called the Sailors for a lift, and Ciarelli got off his seat, walked toward the court and began yelling and pointing at the referee on the ladder. The call was a crucial one, as the Patriots rallied to take Game 3, Mathews and Olivier hammering one kill apiece down the stretch, before Olivier blocked Pender to give Beckman a 2-1 lead in the match.
“I’m not going to talk about the referee,” Ciarelli said.
“I think you know how I felt about the call.”
Even though Lawrence (12 kills) and Carlos Rivera (54 assists and four kills) helped the Sailors force a fifth set, the two elevated their game late in the fourth set, Newport Harbor couldn’t overcome an 8-1 deficit in the final set.
Beckman prevented the Sailors from making their first quarterfinals appearance in five years. The Patriots, the Pacific Coast League runner-up, moved on to play host to Palos Verdes (26-7), the Bay League runner-up, on Saturday at 7 p.m. Palos Verdes swept Foothill, 25-18, 25-18, 25-13, in the second round at home on Thursday.
“I don’t really look at it [as the Patriots upset us],” Ciarelli said. “They’re a good volleyball team. They played well. They did what they were supposed to do. They won. I don’t know if there’s that many upsets now. There [are] a lot of pretty equal teams. We’re a young team. I got one senior on the team. That makes it tough.
“We had a good season. We did a good job. You tie for the Sunset League [championship], and you only have one senior on the squad, that’s pretty impressive.”
