A pair of tough losses to the Santa Teresa Division front runners has put the Sobrato girls volleyball team looking up at the division for the first time in a couple of years.
Sobrato—after a hard-fought win over Lincoln early last week—fell in straight sets to Leland and Prospect to fall to 3-2 in league play.
Leland and Prospect both are undefeated in league play heading into Thursday when the Panthers travel to Leland.
Prospect sits at 5-0 while Leland is 4-0 as off presstime on Wednesday.
After the Leland game, coach Julia Brewer was not pleased with her team’s performance.
“It was not our night. They came out scared, but they weren’t anything special or anything we haven’t seen before,” Brewer said. “They weren’t in the mentality they should have been.”
Brewer said despite the tough five-set match against Lincoln two nights before, there shouldn’t have been a hangover as she gave the team the day off in between contests.
“It was a hard fought game and Leland came out on top,” Brewer said. “They were the better team today and we needed to get our butts handed to us.”
Although Sobrato put up a battle in the second and third sets, losing by two in both, the Bulldogs came out flat in the first and fell by nine and it wasn’t that close.
The Bulldogs fell behind to Leland 21-6 before Sobrato went on a run to tighten the game at the end.
From there the momentum carried over to keep the scores tight, with Sobrato taking an 11-8 lead to start the second game, but Leland chipped away.
The Chargers had one run of five straight points, but it was the longest run after the first set.
Sobrato, meanwhile, couldn’t string together enough longer runs, just once serving more than twice in the second and third sets.
But even then, the Bulldogs gave themselves a fighting chance.
Leland had set point six times before finally winning 28-26.
The Chargers got a little help with three foul calls against Sobrato, including two times under the net, both of which were argued to no avail.
All three calls denied Sobrato a chance to serve for set point.
Undaunted by the calls going against the team, Sobrato took charge quickly in the third set, going on a 4-0 run to start and eventually enjoyed an 18-12 lead midway through.
But a lengthy scoring run eluded the Bulldogs and eventually Leland capitalized and stole the momentum back.
The Chargers went on a 7-1 scoring run late in the third to tie the set at 19-all.
Sobrato nearly recovered, forcing a set point at 24-23, but the Bulldogs couldn’t extend the match further.
Leland had a kill from Becca Baggot to knot the game at 24 and two errors from Sobrato put the match away.
Jenna Fields had eight kills to lead the Bulldogs with Naya Ivery, Jessica Bryum and Hailey Keith all adding three.
For Leland, Baggot led all hitters with 11 kills followed by Olivia Kimmel with 10.
Brewer said now the onus is on the team to get better and the next time they play Leland, there shouldn’t be any surprises.
“I think next time we see them, it will be different,” Brewer said. “We have their number now. We know what they do.”
Against Prospect, the Panthers shut things down quickly, winning 25-16, 25-17, 25-14.
The Bulldogs were limited to 10 kills as a team.
Fields and Bynum both led the team with three kills.
Sobrato will next host Hill at 6 p.m. Thursday.
