For the second consecutive year, the Gavilan College volleyball team is Coastal Conference champions.
With a 3-0 sweep of Cañada, the Rams (21-7, 11-1) successfully defended their title on the final game of the regular season.
The Rams were a bit sluggish in the beginning, but managed to find a rhythm in a 25-17, 25-17, 25-8 sweep.
“(The team) has come a long way in seven years,” said coach Kevin Kramer. “It’s our second in two years and third in five years, I’m feeling pretty good about it.”
Gavilan has now won 12 consecutive sets since losing in straight sets to Foothill College for its only blemish of the year.
“I didn’t know that. That’s great. That’s a great accomplishment,” Kramer said. “The girls have worked hard all year. There’s a lot of kids from a lot of different areas. A lot of girls didn’t know they’d end up here. Some how they did and it’s all worked out.”
Rams’ middle blocker Adreinna Castaneda passed herself for second on the most blocks in Gavilan modern history, recording her 70th block in the match. That is one short of the all time single season record.
She also matched the single match record for most blocks in the contest.
Castaneda pulled into second place — leap frogging her own mark set last year — by recording three consecutive blocks in the second game.
That set up Gavilan going on an early run in the second set, taking a 10-6 run.
The Rams trailed just three times the entire match.
Cañada opened the first set going on a 5-1 run before Gavilan found its footing.
Sabina Gerard had a kill and an ace to lead the rams on a run to tie the set at 6 all.
Cañada took a lead back on a kill, but never led again for the next set and a half.
Led by the kills of Tasmin Apple and Savanna Hartman, the Rams too a three-point lead. Cañada made one final run to tie the game at 12 all.
Gavilan put the throttle down going on a 13-5 scoring run to close out the set.
In the second set, Cañada tied the game at 10 before Gavilan once again put the hammer down.
Behind the hitting of Castaneda, Gerard and Jessica Stofer, the Rams put up 15 points to again win by eight.
Cañada took just its third lead of the match by recording the first point of the third set.
But the Colts never could put strings of points together as Gavilan held them to fewer than 10 points.
After the Rams cruised through the final set, the team donned conference champions t-shirts and celebrated.
“It felt really awesome,” Castaneda said of winning another conference title. “No other team has done this at Gav, so it feels really nice to be the only team to do it.”
Castaneda, Apple and Hartman all finished with six kills to lead the Rams. Gerard led the team with three aces.
Gavilan will learn its playoff seeding Sunday. Kramer said he’s not certain if the Rams will get a home game to open the playoffs, calling it a 50-50 proposition.
“We’ve got some work to do, we’ve got to get better in certain key areas, but until we find out who we play, it’s pretty hard to focus on what we need to do,” Kramer said.
He said he’s going to try to lobby for his players to get an eight seed so they can start the Northern California playoffs at home.
