Girls volleyball: Sailors show plenty of Hart

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT BEACH - It wasn’t quite as fancy and colorful as their

green-shaded team picture at the ocean shoreline, but Newport Harbor

High’s Sailors got the job done Thursday night and advanced to the

quarterfinals of the CIF Southern Section Division I-A girls volleyball

playoffs.

The Sea View League runner-up Sailors (20-9), unseeded in the Division

I-A eliminations, absorbed a first-game loss to Newhall-based Hart,

10-15, then rallied to win three straight, 15-9, 15-7, 15-12, in the

second round at Newport Harbor.

Harbor, three-time defending CIF champions and two-time defending

State Division I winners, will face longtime rival and third-seeded

Huntington Beach on the road Saturday in the quarterfinals.

“We beat (the Oilers) two straight at the Orange County Championships,

but then they beat us three straight here (in a nonleague match),” Harbor

Coach Dan Glenn said. “They’re a very good team, and they beat (Sea View

champion) Irvine this year.”

Getting by Hart’s Indians (19-5), though, wasn’t easy for the Sailors

with 26 hitting errors.

“They kind of hung in there the whole time,” Glenn said of the

Foothill League champion Indians, “but we made a lot of hitting errors.”

Newport senior outside hitter Taylor Govaars, headed for Delaware, led

the way with 20 kills and 10 digs, while freshman Alyson Jennings (17

digs and 11 kills) and senior Lauren Bald (18 digs) played solid defense.

Jennings and Kristin McClune, a 6-foot-2 sophomore middle blocker who

added 10 kills for Newport, were consistent hitting threats.

In the second game and leading, 11-9, the Tars tied the match, 1-1,

with four unanswered points. Liz Lord (nine kills and six digs) and Colby

George combined on a block and a Hart hitting error gave the Tars their

first win.

Newport jumped out to leads of 8-0 and 12-2 in the third game, before

holding on. Hart cut the deficit to 13-7 before losing.

In the fourth game, Harbor managed a fast 7-2 lead, mostly on Hart

mistakes. But Coach Shannon Martin’s squad, which starts six seniors,

came back and tied the game three times, the last at 11-all.

With Heather Cullen at the service line, Harbor rolled off four

straight points for a 14-11 edge. George capped the match with a service

winner.

“It was a tough match,” Martin said. “Newport Harbor’s just a tough

team.”