Monte Vista Christian snapped Christopher High varsity
volleyball’s seven-match win streak as the teams opened Monterey
Bay League play on Tuesday night in Gilroy.
Before the Christopher High girls varsity volleyball team took the court Tuesday to open Monterey Bay League play against visiting Monte Vista Christian, head coach Tom Schatz knew success could hinge on how the Cougars handled Britta Blaser, the Mustangs proven senior hitter.
What he didn’t fathom was his up-to-that-point, on-a-roll Cougars to have trouble keeping the unforced errors to a minimum.
Led by 15 kills off the right hand of the 6-foot-2 Blaser, Monte Vista Christian snapped Christopher’s seven-match win streak, riding the momentum of a 12-1 run to close out the first set en route to capturing a 25-17, 25-21, 25-16 victory.
“Britta got us on our heels,” Schatz said. “Every time any one of their hitters swung, they were stepping backwards. You don’t have to swing hard on offense if the defense is moving away from the ball. (Monte Vista Christian) is good, they are scrappy, but they are beatable.”
The Cougars, who hadn’t dropped a set in five matches, held a 16-13 lead in the first set, before MVC (10-3 overall, 1-0 MBL) embarked on the clinching run, a trend that continued in the next two sets.
“We need to go back to square one and work on fundamentals,” Schatz said. “If you look at the stats of the first set, it was 25-17 and we had 11 hitting errors. You can’t win when you are only scoring six points. We didn’t do anything for ourselves tonight.”
CHS (8-6, 0-1 MBL) trailed 11-10 midway through set two and again at the 20-15 juncture. But a rally, aided by an Aly Olvera kill, Brittany Souza ace and an Alex Gerberick kill, pulled CHS to within two points, only to be outscored the rest of the way.
“We kind of fell apart with what we had been doing,” Gerberick said. “Our passing was off a and I think that hurt us. It was just inconsistency. Coach was on us for our jab-stepping on defense.”
Set three followed a similar script, with the teams knotted at 12-12 after Emily Doughty registered her lone point and again at 14-all, the Mustangs posted an 11-2 push to put the finishing touches on the match.
“We just weren’t as focused,” Hanna Tabron said. “It’s not an excuse. We have a lot of games left and we need to focus on league.”
Gerberick had five kills, two aces and 13 assists, Tabron had four kills and one block and Olvera put away four kills, had five digs and one block.
The Cougars can begin another winning streak Thursday when they travel south to challenge Monterey. First serve is slated for 6:30 p.m.
“It’s the first game of league, we have all season,” Gerberick said. “We just have to work hard in practice. Every practice, every touch you have is important.”
