MORGAN HILL
–– After winning their first league game against Seaside the
night before, the Haybalers lost to Live Oak in three games on
Friday.
MORGAN HILL –– After winning their first league game against Seaside the night before, the Haybalers lost to Live Oak in three games on Friday.
Despite dropping three straight games to first-place Live Oak, the San Benito boys volleyball team played better than the score would seem to indicate.
After getting outclassed by the Acorns in the first game 25-14, the Haybaler boys sharpened their attack and hung with the taller Live Oak team for the rest of the match.
At times, the Balers (1-3 in league, 4-8 overall) appeared to be poised to take a game from the Acorns but couldn’t quite finish off the effort and fell 25-21 and 25-22 in the second and third game, respectively.
But the Balers’ performance against the favorite to repeat as TCAL champs encouraged third-year San Benito coach Henke Mao.
“They were a little slow after going five games the night before,” Mao said. “Other than the first game – we didn’t get off to a good start – we fought back and played well. We’ll get them next time.”
The Balers produced their finest effort of the evening in the final game. Behind the play of Jonathan Crepeau, Kyle Fowles and setter Jeff Hawks, San Benito rolled to a 19-14 lead with three consecutive winning serves by Alex Gonzalez.
But Live Oak rallied behind its towering front line led by 6-foot-9 senior Chris Deem, along with Royce Newcomb and Cameron Bassett, and outscored the Balers 11-3 the rest of the way to close out the match.
Live Oak coach James Uthes, a close friend of Mao, said his team struggled to set it’s big guns for much of the match and survived with a solid serving and passing game.
San Benito was led by Crepeau, who had nine kills, and Fowles, who had seven, while Hawks had 22 assists.
Live Oak (3-0 in league, 11-3 overall) was led by Newcomb and Bassett, with nine kills each and Deem, who had eight despite battling a shoulder injury.
Against Seaside, San Benito won 25-23, 25-13, 23-25, 23-25, 15-10.
The Balers came back in the final game from a 9-7 deficit and tied it at 10 with good passing from Nathan Davies and great defense from Gonzalez.
“From there we just shut down Seaside’s offense with the key blocks at the net from Tomas Rebecchi, Peter Prak and Jeff Hawks,” Mao said.
Fowles led the Balers with 10 kills, Prak had nine, Rebecchi had eight and Crepeau had six. Hawks had 37 assists. San Benito had a team high of eight team blocks.
The Balers were coming off of a 3-3 performance in a sixteen-team tournament in Fresno the previous weekend. San Benito finished in third place finish in the consolation bracket.
The Balers will go against Alisal on Tuesday then will play Palma on Friday.
