Sage wants more after sweeping Mesa

NEWPORT COAST — At 5-8, their records aren’t the only thing the Costa Mesa High and Sage Hill School boys’ volleyball teams have in common.

After the Lightning defeated the Mustangs, 25-18, 25-13, 25-2, both Sage Hill Coach Dan Thomassen and Costa Mesa Coach Ryan Bagwell wanted to see more toughness.

For the Lightning, the toughness has become more of a factor in close games which they’ve hard difficulty winning. In the Mustangs’ case, it’s lacking in their serving and sometimes in their hitting.

“We purposely scheduled some tough games, but we lost a lot of close ones,” Thomassen said. “We’re learning how to win the close matches. Ones like this, where we get a lead and we’re in control, we do pretty well. But in the close games, we look a little bit like we’re not real organized at the end.”

Bagwell wanted to see more force behind 6-foot-9 junior Ryan Thompson’s kill attempts to make them more difficult to defend.

“At this level, you’re not going to be able to just roll-shot the ball on the court,” Bagwell said. “You’ve got to be aggressive and swing hard every time, and tipping’s not going to do that. Tipping at the top will not win games. That’s a fact. Every ball we did not get a proper set on we just roll-shotted it to the libero and they had a free set-up.”

The Mustangs committed at least nine serving errors, mostly balls that didn’t clear the net. Bagwell wasn’t as bothered by the long balls that went out of bounds, because he’s looking for stronger serving, too.

“We miss a lot of first serves,” Bagwell said. “Big time. That was huge. Those serves were ginormous. We just weren’t aggressive enough. I was working on seeing harder, more aggressive serves, and they did that, but now we need to work on getting it in more often.”

Junior Garrett Frazier led the Mustangs with five kills and two aces, while junior Jeff Dye added four. Thompson had three blocks. Junior Andy Feldman had eight digs and senior setter Henry Tran had 12 assists.

Junior outside hitter Bayle Smith had eight kills and four aces. Junior outside hitter Joey Booth and senior opposite Carl Hillgren both followed with seven each. Junior setter Michael Bear had 28 assists.

The Lighting were able to capitalize on some of the weaker free balls and convert them for kills, particularly in Game Two when Sage Hill went on an 8-4 run to close the game.

The Lightning, who went to the CIF Southern Section Division V semifinals last season, where they lost to Viewpoint, have stumbled a bit in the preseason, but they’ve also seen some tougher competition.

Sage Hill, ranked No. 6 in the CIF Division V coaches’ poll, recently competed in the Orange County Championships, where the team fell to unranked Division I Saint John Bosco. The Lightning also lost a match to Division II Beckman, which plays in the Pacific Coast League with Orange County juggernaut Corona del Mar, ranked No. 4 in Division II.

“We’ll come together by the end of the season,” said sophomore libero Mattias Russo-Larson, who had 12 digs. “That just takes time ... we’re a little rusty because we haven’t played in a while, but I’m confident we’ll be beating those teams this season.”

SORAYA NADIA McDONALD may be reached at (714) 966-4613 or at [email protected].