Acorns gain some confidence with win over Evergreen
The Live Oak girls volleyball team has been waiting all season for things to come together and for it to play the style of volleyball it is accustomed to.

That finally seemed to happen Tuesday against Evergreen Valley, as the Acorns sweep the visiting Cougars 25-17, 25-23, 25-14.

“That was a nice win,” Live Oak coach Laura Coleman said. “It was nice to see us finally have a breather. I’m getting tired of these four, five match games.”

The win was the Acorns (6-8, 3-2) third in a row in Blossom Valley Athletic League Mount Hamilton Division play since starting the season 0-2.

“Our serving was awesome,” Coleman said. “We have not served like that. Our serving, I think, was probably the best I have seen so far.”

Senior Katarina Cinkova did much of her damage early, slamming home five of her seven kills in the first game win.

Evergreen (10-7, 2-3) played well in the second game and put the pressure on Live Oak. Trailing 21-16, the Cougars recorded six straight points to take a 22-21 lead.

An Evergreen service error tied the game back up and the Acorns took advantage to pull out the win.

The third game was never close. Live Oak jumped out to an 8-2 lead and put the game away when Talia Reyes-Ortiz, who led the Acorns with 11 kills, served three straight aces to make it 13-4 and a service error by the Cougars finally put the game away.

Cross country

Live Oak’s girls cross country team went 2-1 in a tri-meet Monday at Montgomery Hill Park, dropping their first BVAL match but also picking up two wins in the process.

The Acorns fell to Oak Grove 24-35, but earned a 23-32 decision over Lincoln and earned a win over an incomplete Yerba Buena squad.

“Oak Grove is going to be the school to look for in the league finals,” coach Dean Raymond said.

Olivia Duran once again paced the squad, breaking the 20-minute mark to finish third-place overall by running the 2.74-mile course in 19:58, an improvement of 1:46 off her run from two weeks ago at Montgomery Hill.

“That was her goal so I was really excited for her for that,” Raymond said of Duran’s breaking the 20-minute barrier.

Pauline Olsen also had another strong meet, finishing seventh with a time of 21:25 – 27 seconds better than her previous score at the course. Renee Dominguez also ran well, finishing 19th overall with a time of 22:51.

The boys team earned its first win in BVAL competition, beating Lincoln 26-29. Live Oak finished 1-2 in the meet, losing 18-38 to Yerba Buena and 23-32 to Oak Grove.

Eric Matsumoto had his strongest run of the league season, taking ninth with a time of 17:00, which tops his previous time by 35 seconds.

Greg Wong improved his time by a minute and a half to finish in 18:37 and Xavier Gonzales also had a big improvement, beating his previous time of 20:32 to finish in 18:57.

Armando Rodriguez, who hadn’t raced in the last three meets because of an injury, had a time of 19:52 and was named the boys athlete of the week. Tara Benner of the JV team was the girls athlete of the week after improving her best time by more than four minutes to finish in 27:34 on a day in which every runner set a personal record.

Girls golf

Mina Harigae was on her game with a 4-under-par 32 Tuesday and Robert Louis Stevenson easily captured the Tri-County Athletic League Group N Golf Tournament at Salinas Fairways Golf Course.

Jam Vilaratana shot even-par 36 for the Pirates, whose team total for the event played on the Fairways back nine was 157. Allison Lee at 44 and Justine Oh at 45 completed the RLS scoring.

Live Oak finished fifth in the tournament with a team score of 272. Katie Delman was the Acorns top finisher with a round of 62.

Girls tennis

Live Oak fell to 1-6 on the season with a 6-1 loss to Silver Creek.

The Acorns’ No. 1 doubles team of Arianna Hosseini and Charissa Hosseini battled hard before losing a close 2-6, 6-4, 7-5 decision.

Field hockey

Live Oak was locked up in another tight battle and the Acorns fell to Prospect 1-0 on Tuesday.

The loss dropped Live Oak to 2-2-1 in league play this season.

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