Undefeated T-CAL rivals bump heads in first-place battle tonight
at 6 in Morgan Hill
MORGAN HILL – The Live Oak and Gilroy volleyball teams will square off Friday night in a match that could have playoff implications as both undefeated teams vie for a Tri-County Athletic League title.
Both Live Oak (12-7, 4-0 TCAL) and Gilroy (13-7, 5-0 TCAL) are on top of the league standings. Gilroy has played one more game because of the postponed game between Live Oak and Hollister.
The varsity game is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. or 22 minutes after the end of the JV game, which starts at 5 p.m. Live Oak coach John Telfer hopes to pack the gym with Acorn fans after seeing a heavy Gilroy crowd make the trip last season.
Live Oak is coming off a 15-6, 13-15, 15-5, 15-13 win over Salinas (0-6), while Gilroy defeated Seaside 15-4, 15-7, 15-8.
“We have a tendency to play our better games against stronger teams,” Telfer said. “We lost a little focus like we did against Palma and reverted back to some of our old habits. We have to be careful because that is how upsets happen.”
Drew Pearson had 11 kills, and Matt McElroy had eight kills for the Acorns. Erik Telfer had some good serves and had five kills. Setter Sampson Chan kept the blockers leaning the wrong way with his timely hits.
If last year’s matchups between the tall Live Oak team and the speedy Gilroy squad was any indication, Friday night’s match should be highly entertaining.
“We’ve been playing better the last few weeks – more as a team,” Telfer said. “As long as we come to play and execute how we know we are capable of, we should give them a good game.”
Telfer has done his homework on Gilroy this season, having seen them in two games and through two tournaments – so he knows what to expect.
“I am expecting them to throw some wrinkles because they know I was watching,” Telfer said. “We got a few things in store too. I think we are prepared. Man-for-man we match up excellent as far as talent. They have played very solid as a team. And we have at times, but not as consistently.”
Martin also has seen Live Oak and knows what to expect.
“We have both seen a lot of each other, and we both know what we do strong,” Martin said. “It will come down to who executes on the court. It will be a long match, and it will probably be all close games. The first game will be pivotal in who comes out strong.”
One of the players the Acorns have to stop is Jason Mendeceles – an outside hitter with an unusual approach. During practice a couple weeks ago he split open a hand of the team’s second setter Patrick Largo. Largo had six stitches and is still not back.
“He has what we call a broad jump,” Telfer said. “Instead of coming to a stop on the approach and jumping straight up, he basically jumps from quite a ways off the net and then makes contact a good four feet off the net. It is sometimes tricky for blockers to time it. It changes the look and gives him a few more angles to work with.”
Mendeceles is also unusual because he is a left-handed hitter but hits from the normal right-handed side.
“From the left side of the court, that is normally where your best right-handed hitters hit from,” Telfer said. “From pre-game scouting we have seen that has done a lot of damage on that side rather on his more predictably strong side of the right side. We normally put our blockers against a team’s best right-handed hitters, so we may have to make adjustments.”
Senior Josh Gravell, a left-handed middle, is another player the Acorns will have to stop.
In addition to the front line, Gilroy also is a good float serving team with knuckle balls that drop suddenly and feature a lot of movement.
“It is actually a harder ball to serve/receive than a hard-hit jump serve,” Telfer said. ” We’ve done a pretty good job of handling them this year. But we have seen Gilroy do a lot of damage this year with their float serves alone.”
Live Oak also can counter with the floaters.
“We have at least four guys who have excellent float serves,” Telfer said. “I am going to give them a little taste of what they have been doing to other teams. I am not sure how many other teams have served them the way we are going to serve them.”
Gilroy, which is missing 6-foot-4 blocker Nick Mason with a twisted ankle, has one 6-foot-3 player, John Bowie on the active roster. While Live Oak has two 6-foot-9 trees in Pearson and Chris Deem.
“It will come down to how well we controll their height,” said Gilroy coach Craig Martin. “Not to say that they are slow because they are not. If we can dig up the hits, we will stay right with them. We move the ball around to different hitters so much. People don’t know how to defend us so far this year because they don’t know where the ball is coming from.”
“The key is going to be how good of a defense we play against their tall hitters,” Martin added. “We have to hit the ball far enough away from them when we are hitting it because they basically can stick their hands up and jump a little bit and then block us.”
Gilroy will be without Michael Faria, who is getting his wisdom teeth pulled, and Daniel Vadillo, who is going on a college visit to Arizona.
Martin said he plans to bring up JV players Josh Binowski and Calvin Kretz to fill the missing roster spots.
“We will have ten players suited which is perfect for our rotation,” Martin said. “We rotate nine in. Calvin will be our extra hitter. Binowski will be in the starting rotation. He is the best digger that we have in the whole program, but he is only a sophomore.”
Gilroy has had a slight advantage on mutual foes this year, but that won’t matter with Live Oak’s size.
“The momentum swing in volleyball is the way it is,” Martin said. “We’ve been lucky. The key is not making mistakes. If we cut the mistakes, we can play with anyone. You don’t want to give other teams points. Live Oak has a big bench. That is when they start to give up a lot of points. It doesn’t reflect on the first team that is actually on the court.”
