Sailors remain hot

NEWPORT BEACH — The CIF Southern Section Division I boys’ volleyball playoff bracket reads from left to right.

But, as teams advance further right on the page, the level of play goes a different direction — up. Newport Harbor High Coach Dan Glenn effectively reminded his team of this prior to Friday night’s CIF Southern Section Division I quarterfinal match against visiting San Clemente.

“I told the guys, we’re playing league champions the rest of the way,” Glenn said. “We played Tesoro and JSerra [in the first two rounds], and they’re both good teams, but they’re not league champions. And next round, we’re playing a league champion. It’s not getting easier.”

San Clemente, the South Coast League champion, proved to be able competition. But the top-seeded Sailors, the Sunset League champion, were up to the challenge in their 25-18, 21-25, 25-19, 25-16 victory at Newport Harbor.

The Sailors won their 20th straight match and advance to Wednesday’s Division I semifinals, where they’ll face Santa Margarita for the first time this season at a site to be determined today by coin flip. Santa Margarita topped Woodbridge in four games on Friday.

After winning Game 1 against San Clemente (22-7), Newport Harbor (30-3) fell behind in the second game thanks to some clutch blocking by Tritons junior middle blocker Grayson Overman. The 6-foot-6 Overman had five of his match-high seven blocks in the game, helping San Clemente even the match and dealing the Tars their first lost game of the postseason.

“We had to take the game off the net against these guys, because both of their middles were really good,” Glenn said. “We wanted to keep them from setting in the middle, and we did at the end, especially in the fourth game.”

USC-bound senior Tucker Peleuses, who had a match-high 17 kills for Newport Harbor, said he wasn’t too surprised at how the Tritons came out. He said he’s played club volleyball with Overman and San Clemente setter Arik Metzger.

“We saw them on film, and they beat Wilson at home [in the second round],” Peleuses said. “It could have been our last match. We had to leave everything out here and hope it pays off.”

Game 3 was back and forth, with eight ties, the last at 13-13 on a big kill from Peleuses. But a big block by Sailors senior Max Volz (seven kills, three aces, three blocks) gave Newport Harbor a 15-13 lead and prompted a San Clemente timeout.

Senior Luc Heasley then served up two of his four aces, and the Sailors were off and rolling again. They didn’t look back.

UCLA-bound senior setter Kyle Caldwell had eight kills, 34 assists, three aces and a block for the Sailors. UC Santa Barbara-bound outside hitter Mark Liebermann added nine kills and five digs, and junior JB Green tallied 10 digs.

“I think next round, we’re definitely have to block better,” Glenn said. “That’s something we can improve on, focus on in practice the next couple of days. Defensively, I was disappointed, but that might have had something to do with our block. If one thing breaks down, it’s all connected. But we didn’t panic after the second game. The coach panicked a little bit, but not the players.”

He also highlighted his team’s strong serving. But San Clemente, which was led in kills by Ian Castellana with 15, struggled serving at times.

“We had to get very scrappy, because we knew [Newport Harbor] was going to be all offense all the time,” Overman said. “We took a game off of them; I guess that’s the best we could do.”

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or by e-mail at [email protected].