Ladies lose to San Benito High in a close match Thursday As
expected, the Gilroy girls
’ volleyball team came at Live Oak with everything it had. But
the Acorns, coming off a big win at Notre Dame last week, were able
to keep the Mustangs in check.
As expected, the Gilroy girls’ volleyball team came at Live Oak with everything it had.
But the Acorns, coming off a big win at Notre Dame last week, were able to keep the Mustangs in check.
Live Oak defeated Gilroy on its own floor in three straight games Tuesday, 25-22, 25-21, 25-20, to improve to 19-10 overall and 5-3 in the Tri-County Athletic League.
But a 25-21, 25-21, 25-22 loss to league-leader San Benito Thursday dropped the Acorns to 19-11, 5-4 in TCAL. In that game, middle Katarina Cinkova led Live Oak with 10 kills.
On Tuesday night, Gilroy came out surprisingly strong and didn’t fold along the way as they did in Morgan Hill when the two teams played each other last month for the first time. But Live Oak was able to maintain the upper hand and won the crucial first game, during which the score was tied 13 times. That win seemed to give the Acorns a leg up for the rest of the match.
“They always do it against us,” said Live Oak head coach Laura Coleman. “They play their best matches against us. There is nothing to take for granted against (Gilroy).”
In the first game, Live Oak never took more than a two-point lead the entire way. A Live Oak missed serve and a solo block for kill from Mustang middle Vanessa Wilkins knotted the game at 22.
But the Acorns took a 24-22 lead after a kill by Laura Dudek and a service ace by Talia Reyes-Ortiz. Gilroy called a timeout to regroup and set up Wilkins on the following play, but her kill sailed long and Live Oak took the first game.
In Game 2, Live Oak took an early 9-4 lead, but Gilroy clawed back, even after losing captain and setter Katherine Hussey to an injury, to take a 21-19 lead. But Gilroy’s Jessica Groppe’s kill for that 21st point was the last score the Mustangs would see.
After a timeout, Live Oak went on a 6-point rally, started by a Gilroy missed serve. A kill from Reyes-Ortiz and an ace by Kristen Russ sandwiched around a lift call on Gilroy put Live Oak up 23-21. The Acorns earned the last two points of the game on a Mustang hit into the net and another kill by Reyes-Ortiz.
Midway through Game 3, Live Oak broke away from Gilroy for good. Live Oak had a one-point lead that expanded to five after Gilroy missed a serve, and Acorns Katarina Cinkova (8 kills) and Reyes-Ortiz blasted back-to-back kills. Then Cinkova blocked a kill by Gilroy’s Wilkins for a point. That gave the Acorns a 17-12 lead which Gilroy couldn’t erase.
Russ was the kill leader for Live Oak with 11. Setter Sabrina LaCorte had 32 assists.
“They played fine today,” Coleman said. “We had a little bit of a yo-yo game going on.”
Then again, Live Oak was coming off one of its best performances of the season: A big upset victory over Notre Dame. Coleman said it was a match where “everything clicked.”
“That (match) looked pretty,” she said.
Live Oak, which is in fourth place ahead of Gilroy in TCAL, still has a good shot at the Central Coast Section playoffs, Coleman said. The Acorns earned a No. 6 seed last year with a similar record.
This weekend, the Acorns will travel to play in the Milpitas Spikefest II before heading to North Salinas Monday.
