The Live Oak High girls volleyball team was realistic heading
into Wednesday’s season-opener against powerhouse San Benito.
Morgan Hill – The Live Oak High girls volleyball team was realistic heading into Wednesday’s season-opener against powerhouse San Benito.
The main focus was to grow together as a team, work on some fundamentals and gain experience while playing a strong opponent.
With that being the case, the Acorns accomplished their mission despite a 25-14, 25-14, 25-11 loss to the ‘Balers.
“After this game, even though the stats didn’t say we played as well as we should have, we definitely bonded as a team,” senior Talia Reyes-Ortiz said. “Our defense jelled really, really well.”
Live Oak head coach Laura Coleman was also pleased with her team’s defensive play and felt that if her team can shore up it’s offense, it should be fine by the start of the league season.
“My offense, we made all the errors. If I took away a lot of the hitting errors, we probably would’ve been much closer to them,” Coleman said. “But that’s OK. My defense was awesome. My serve-receive, (Jennifer Lima) was phenomenal.”
Acorn senior Katerina Cinkova played despite a back muscle injury, but had to abandon her normal middle blocker position because of the injury and was far less than 100 percent.
“When you’re middle blocking, you’re doing a lot of jumping,” Coleman said. “She’s icing it right now so I know I probably shouldn’t have played her.”
Cinkova’s injury isn’t expected to be serious and she should take advantage of the nine days off before Live Oak (0-1) plays again in a tournament in Reno on Sept. 8 and 9.
“She just needs rest,” Coleman said. “As soon as it doesn’t hurt anymore, she can play full speed.”
Getting her team playing at full speed is something that Coleman is confident will occur over the next couple of weeks.
“The girls aren’t too disappointed,” Coleman said. “To them they felt like they played as a team, they weren’t trying to play individually. So I’m not too worried about that.”
The opportunity to get an early season shot at one of the top teams in the Central Coast Section was another positive for the Acorns.
“I defintely think that after this game we realize that we still have a lot of work to do,” Reyes-Ortiz said. “Hollister’s a really good team. We held our own but now we know what we need to work on.”
After trailing for the entirety of Game 1, Live Oak held its only lead of the night when it took a 2-0 advantage to start the second game.
But San Benito’s Emily Kortsen, defending Tri-County Athletic League MVP, slammed home a kill to tie the game at 4-4 and the ‘Balers rattled off seven straight points and didn’t trail the rest of the night. San Benito senior Bri Romero finished off the game with one of her eight kills on the night and the ‘Balers cruised to a two games to none advantage.
The third game was more of the same. Live Oak tried to keep it close and had it knotted up at 6-6 early on. But the ‘Balers scored 10 straight points and 15 out of 16 to take a 21-7 advantage and finished off the Acorns.
“I think they had great chemistry out there,” San Benito coach Dean Askanas said of his team. “They communicated with each other well. The defense was good. I thought all our defensive specialists did real well.”
With the Acorns and ‘Balers not in the same league anymore, players on both sides said it was fun to still get to play their old rival again.
“It was a lot less pressure,” Reyes-Ortiz said of squaring off with San Benito in a non-league game. “I know a lot of players on their team. … We were still competitive, we still want to beat them.”
“It made it more fun because we know the girls,” ‘Balers’ senior Chelsea Fowles added. “It makes it more competitive.”
