MORGAN HILL –
 With the new rally scoring system, hitting errors are
taboo.
San Benito High started tabooing from serve one and could never
snap out of the spell, losing to host Live Oak 25-22, 25-18, 25-17
Tuesday evening in the Tri-County Athletic League volleyball opener
for both teams. It was the first time a Live Oak team has swept the
Balers in a league match in recent memory.
MORGAN HILL –Â With the new rally scoring system, hitting errors are taboo.
San Benito High started tabooing from serve one and could never snap out of the spell, losing to host Live Oak 25-22, 25-18, 25-17 Tuesday evening in the Tri-County Athletic League volleyball opener for both teams. It was the first time a Live Oak team has swept the Balers in a league match in recent memory.
Haybaler coach Chuck Schallhorn played 10 of his 13 players, trying to find the right combinations. There was a flash here and a flash there, but the Balers, who suffered faulty passing along with too many long hits, couldn’t solve the pesky Acorns, who kept it coming at a consistent basis.
It was not the most ideal way to begin league play for the five-time defending champion Balers (7-9, 0-1), who now have to keep in the back of their minds about qualifying for the Central Coast Section Tournament, as well.
“The way we played made it tough on us in league,” said Schallhorn. “Not to take anything away from Live Oak, but they didn’t overpower us. They didn’t ram the ball down our throats. We basically handed them the match with all our hitting errors.”
“San Benito is a lot like us,” said Acorns coach Laura Coleman. “They’re young. They lost a lot of people from last year’s team and are rebuilding. I was lucky Tiven was on.”
Tiven is Tiven Catrett, a junior outside hitter who had a match-high 10 kills. Kaycee Dowdle, the Acorns’ senior captain, had six kills as the Acorns stuffed the Balers several times at the net for winners.
The Balers actually led game one 12-11 on an ace by Alyssa Fowles, who was credited with three aces for the match. The Acorns (10-7, 1-0) extended out to 18-14, but the Balers came out of a timeout with three straight points, including a jump serve ace by Melissa Moore.
Down 23-19, Schallhorn called his final timeout. Not that the Acorns needed any help, but when play resumed, the scoreboard read 24-19 for some reason. The extra point for the Acorns was nearly the difference as the Balers tallied three points in succession. Leslie Schipper, who played well at the net for the Balers, put one down off a short set. Moore contributed one of her six kills and Fowles served another ace. Amanda Boyd made a great save in the back row of a ball which was going out to keep a rally going, but a telling Baler hitting error ended the game.
The pattern at the start of each game for the Balers got progressively worse, getting down 0-3 in game one, 0-4 in game two, then 0-5 in game three. The Balers had some momentum in game two after an ace by Amy Baxter gave them a 15-12 lead. A block and then an overzealous lift call on Baler setter Stephanie Mauro had the match suddenly tied at 16-16.
The Acorns, who dug well the whole night, made a super dig on a tough jump serve by Moore and then put back the winner for 20-17.
The Balers were down 7-2 in game three when sophomore Jamie Temperino went to work. Temperino had a block at the net for 7-3, then added a kill. Another kill by Temperino cut the Acorns lead to 8-6. A Temperino ace brought 8-7. The Acorns, to their credit, withstood any Baler run and forged on for the victory.
“Live Oak served deep and served tough,” said Schallhorn. “We’l be working on hitting extremely hard in practice. We have no excuse to play the way we played.”
“We were surprised we lost in three games,” said Baler setter Stephanie Mauro. “We had a lot of passing issues. Then we’d get a good pass, then the set would be off. Or we’d have a good pass and a good set and then the hit would be off. We had trouble putting all three together. We didn’t have cohesion out there.”
The Balers host Gilroy this Thursday at 6:30 p.m.
JV result: The Baler junior varsity defeated the Acorns 25-18, 25-14. Chelsea Fowles was 10-11 serving with two aces. Bailey Brown was 10-10 serving, while Kassie Kearns was 8-8 serving with two aces. Cassie Kortsen and Courtney Dunn had three kills each for the Balers (6-4). Ari Romero passed and dug well.
Frosh result: Live Oak defeated San Benito 25-22, 14-25, 16-14. The Baler frosh played in the Aptos Tournament at Cabrillo College last Saturday and placed second in the Silver Division. The Balers beat Palo Alto 25-20, 25-17 and Aptos 25-17, 21-25, 15-10 in bracket play. The Balers, 2-4 on the day, had some individual highlights. Samantha Patton had eight aces and 22 kills, while Alyssa Ashford had 19 aces and 14 kills.
