JV Girls Volleyball Championship

International wins 25-20, 25-11
Griffin girls beat Jaguars, take trophy

The International junior varsity girls volleyball team won the league championship with a convincing straight sets win over their arch-rivals, Cooperative, in their home gym Tuesday.

The two teams, each of whom owned a victory in their two previous meetings this year, battled within a couple of points of each other through most of the first set until the score reached 21-19 in favor of the Griffins. At that point International put on a victory spurt and took the set 25-20.

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READY ON THE FIRING LINE -- Griffin Captain Diana Paola Melgar prepares to paste one up the middle. Jonatan Muñoz, International

The Griffins continued to hold that momentum into the second set, in which they never trailed, moving out to a 10-5 lead and then building on it. Volleyball is by nature a streaky game in which the team winning points gains confidence, while the team that is making errors tends to make more, and this phenomenon took hold in this game as International moved out to leads of 16-9 and then 21-11. At that point they accelerated again to win 25-11.
Griffin coach Eli Vilar singled out Diana Melgar, Renata Maggi, and Ciara Harriague for special praise.

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HAIL TO THE VICTORS --

Griffins are 2008 SCISL JV Girls Volleyball Champions Jonatan Muñoz, International

Also involved in the victory were Paula Suarez, Diana Salman, Ingrid Saito, Laura Gioto, and Agustina Barco.
The Griffins had three fifth graders on the team, auguring well for future Griffin teams.
Cooperative coach Misty Skidmore was philosophic about the loss. "Things happen in volleyball and you can't let it get to you. Today we let it it get to us."
She had special praise for the play of Estefania Sauto, Tamara Paz, and Nicole Arias. The Cooperative line-up also included Susana Zankiz, Megumi Kamiya, Tania Landivar, Maria Jose Viacava, Flavia Cortez, Nadia Vaca Diez, Celita Guanella, Mariana DeCarvalho, and Fabiana Pena.
The Griffin victory was in a way a payback for the upset Cooperative inflicted on a then undefeated (and very over-confident) Griffin team in last year's JV championship.
And it is a comment on the increasing intensity of play in the league that this year no team came close to going undefeated. International's regular season record was 4-2; Cooperative was 3-3. Unlike past years, no team in the League went winless.