GILROY—Christopher and Salinas had fans on the edges of their seats Thursday as the two teams exchanged blows and took their match to the wire.
But a focused and patient Cougar team waited for their opportunity to pounce and it paid off in a 3-2 win over the Cowboys at home.
Christopher won 25-22, 17-25, 25-18, 25-22, 15-12.
Salinas took a 6-3 lead early in Set 5, but Matthew Vidito sparked a four-point run when he tipped the ball over the net and proceeded to score on back-to-back kills, giving the Cougars a 7-6 lead.
From there, the teams exchanged points until a kill from captain Alec Menacho gave his team a 13-12 lead. Salinas couldn’t keep the ball in bounds on its next two possessions and this gave the home team the two points it needed for the win.
“It was really intense,” Menacho said. “I just thought that we needed to come together as a team and go point-by-point and pull through.”
Christopher took a dominant 13-6 lead in Set 1, but Salinas was able to capitalize on the Cougars’ mistakes to get back in the game to tie it at 21-21. Luckily for the hosts, the Cowboys had a few miscues of their own, leaving them needing only a point to secure the ‘W’ and they got it off a hard kill from Miles Gundy.
“(I told them) one at a time boys, one at a time,” Cougar coach Karie Gonzales said. “That’s all they had to do was focus on one point at a time. I told them to play as a team and they got the job done.”
The two teams were locked in a 5-5 tie early in the second set before Salinas started to pull away. The Cowboys outscored Christopher 9-4 to take a 15-9 lead from which it never recovered.
The Cougars had five of their 12 total service errors in Set 2.
But the lull didn’t last long. Christopher charged out of the gate in the third set, building a 13-5 lead thanks to two aces from Mencacho and another from libero Bryant Huynh. Mencacho also partnered with Vidito for a key block and Huynh scored a big kill while falling backwards.
“It was very intense; both teams played their hearts out,” Huynh said. “We just had to get that win, we had to.”
Christopher widened its lead, holding Salinas to just two points to jump ahead 19-7. Yet again, the Cowboys stayed in the game thanks to Cougars errors and went on a 5-0 run late to cut the lead to 23-18. Tyler Galloway finished the fight for Christopher with a kill.
Salinas took a five-point lead early in Set 4. Galloway and Brevin Zollinger notched a few key kills to get their team within one to trail 16-15. Salinas didn’t let up, however, and strung together a crucial kills of their own for the victory.
“We had to fight for every point,” Huyhn said. “If one of us messes up, even myself, we always bring each other up. We just got to keep fighting; always got to keep pushing.”
Zollinger led the Cougars with 13 kills and two blocks. Gundy and Galloway each added seven kills; Gundy also had seven blocks, while Galloway had four. Mencacho had six kills and two aces. Huynh also had two aces.
The 4-2 Cougars will play in the Charger Classic Tournament on Saturday at Leland High School. Before then, Menacho said his team has some things to improve on.
“When we’re down, I think we need to work on coming together,” the captain said. “When we’re on our low side, we have to pull through and we will definitely be better.”
