Griffins Overwhelm Jaguars, Rule League
Story by Sung-Eun Song, SCIS
If there remained any doubt about which girls volleyball team is SCISL’s best, the Santa Cruz International school girls volleyball team erased it Thursday afternoon with a dominating triumph over Cooperative in the Cooperative gym.
The Griffins won the first set 25-13. The second set also went to Griffins as they defeated Jaguars 25-15 for the 2-0 match victory.
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| Photo by Jonatan Muñoz. |
However, at that point, the Griffin girls began to assert themselves aggressively. They won four points consecutively on the service from Beatriz Nallar, whose shots were so powerful that they seemed completely unblockable.
The Griffins gradually assembled a 17-10 lead, never giving the Jaguars a chance to build any momentum.
Among the Griffin girls, the most outstanding was Maria Victoria Gutierrez, who served as the catalyst for the Griffins attack. She caught every chance she got, never missing a ball, always spiking it at her maximum force. She leaped, jumped and spiked the ball flexibly and accurately, often spotting an empty part of the Jaguars court to target; and maintaining firm control of the ball.
Throughout the match, the Griffins girls played solid defense and had an artistic hitting performance. They didn’t have a lot of hitting errors even though Jaguars played really good defense.
The first set ended 25-13, giving the Griffins a big victory.
In the second set, the Griffin girls came out with an even more energy sparking, racing to a 6-1 lead and then never looking back. Led by senior Gutierrez, the Griffin girls held off the usually dominant attack of the Jaguar girls.
After the eight-point timeout, which occurred with the score 8-2 in favor of Griffins, the teamwork of the Jaguar girls seemed to collapse. They made a several errors in their own side of the court while passing the ball to each other, and the overall team atmosphere seemed unstable.
Meanwhile the Griffin girls roared on, widening the point gap to 17-6, almost tripling the Jaguars’. The Jaguars tried catch up with a strong service from Landivar and some nicely finessed points, and gained eight points, but it was too late. The gap was too big to cover and the Griffins were too strong to overcome. The Griffins continued widening their lead until 22-14 with some nicely choreographed duets by Gutierrez and Nallar. The second set ended 25-15, giving Griffins a 2-0 match victory.
Lady Knights Easy Winners Over Eagles
By David Boldt
By David Boldt
The Cambridge Varsity girls volleyball team had little trouble defeating Christian Learning two sets to none in a match played Thursday in the International gym.
Cambridge sprinted ahead of the Eagles in the opening set, eventually opening up a lead of 19-7, and then taking the final six points to win the set 25-7. The Eagles were plagued by unforced errors and serving mistakes, while Cambridge was able to return the ball consistently throughout.
At the beginning of the second set the Eagles stopped making mistakes, and the contest was even until 5-5, with both teams making some intrepid returns. But then the Knights, who are now 1-1 on the season, began to pull slowly ahead, first by three points at 8-5, then by five at 13-8, and ultimately by nine at 21-12.
At this point both teams gave their substitutes a chance to play, and the game became more even, but with Cambridge maintaining an eight or nine point lead, and finally taking the second set 25-17.
For Cambridge the outstanding players were Valeria LaTorre who lived up to her name by being a tower of strength at the net, and Mariel Palacios, whose all-around play was outstanding.
For the Eagles Rebekah Kienzle distinguished herself in a losing cause with both her hard-hitting returns, and impressive digging out of well hit balls coming in from the Cambridge side. Christian Learning is now 0-2.
