Sea Kings do away with jitters

CORONA DEL MAR ? Talent was already present on a young Corona del Mar boys’ volleyball team prior to its first match of the season.

The Sea Kings just needed to rid themselves of their jitters from facing Huntington Beach, one of Orange County’s top teams, and become comfortable playing with one another.

It took two games, but when the Sea Kings started to roll, they did so ? right over the Oilers, erasing a two-game deficit to win, 22-25, 21-25, 25-12, 25-17, 15-13, on Thursday night.

Phil Bannan led the Sea Kings, the defending CIF Southern Section Division II champions, with 47 assists.

Corona del Mar had four players with double-figure kills ? Adam Smith with 16, Blaine Nielsen and Gus Ellis with 13 each and Scott Slaughter with 12.

Spencer Brown was tops in digs with 17.

Down two games, Corona del Mar Coach Steve Conti wanted the match to continue so his players could gain experience from playing a highly regarded team.

“The more we play them, the more we’ll learn,” Conti said. “I thought we played better as the match went on. We are just a young team; we’re learning to play together. We were nervous early. It could have been easy to fold our bags after the second game.”

The Sea Kings did receive a slight scare in the fifth game. Trailing, 14-9, Huntington Beach rallied with four consecutive points. But Smith, a junior outside hitter, put down a cross-court kill to end the game.

“We had nothing to lose,” said Ellis, a sophomore. “We wanted to come out and be No. 1 in Orange County by beating this team. Some might think we’re not as good because of our youth. People will take us a little more serious now.”

After the fourth game, Slaughter said it was Huntington Beach that was playing nervous.

“We were getting perfect blocks up,” said Slaughter, one of three seniors on the team. “I wasn’t worried. We just needed to get it into everybody’s head we could win. They’re a very good team. They beat us twice last year and we wanted to get them back. This is a great win and can get us going.”

The Sea Kings only trailed once after the second game, 1-0 in the fourth.

“For us to succeed, we have to do it as a team,” Conti said. “We have 12 strong players. We’ve got pretty good balance. Our offense doesn’t get predictable.”

The one constant throughout the game was Bannan, a junior setter, who never sat down.

“After the second game, I just thought we were keeping up,” he said. “We could play with these guys. We came out really slow, but we picked it up when we needed to.