Sailors lower boom to rally past Griffins

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NEWPORT BEACH — In his continual attempt to raise the bar for his Newport Harbor High boys’ volleyball team, veteran Sailors Coach Dan Glenn lowered the net.

Glenn, in his 23rd season at the helm, said he used a lower net at Thursday’s practice to drill hand positioning and other blocking fundamentals. And the tactic provided immediate dividends in the Sailors’ 24-26, 25-12, 25-16, 25-20 Sunset League win over visiting Los Alamitos Friday.

The Sailors (18-7, 5-0 in league), ranked No. 5 in CIF Southern Section Division I, amassed 15 team blocks, including nine tandem stuffs, to the Griffins’ three team blocks.

The decisive edge in that department helped the Tars overcome a listless start that allowed Los Alamitos (12-15, 2-4) to fortify its upset aspirations.

But those long-shot leanings didn’t last, as the defending league champions won decisively in the second and third sets, before pulling away late in Game 4 to close out the match.

“It was a good match for us,” Glenn said. “The best thing about this league is, you’ve got to come every night and play. We didn’t panic tonight when we lost that first game. But I don’t think we’re doing a good job of using our home-court advantage. We’re not coming out and playing with energy.”

Senior middle blocker Richard De St. Jean, however, said the Sailors were playing with a greater knowledge of blocking fundamentals — thanks to Thursday’s refresher course. And, De St. Jean said, it showed on the stat sheet.

“That was one of our better blocking matches,” said De St. Jean, who had two solo blocks and four block assists to go with his six kills. “We’ve actually been struggling with that lately and it has really hurt us. We’ve been relying a lot on our defense to get us through matches. Tonight, the [back-row defense] definitely contributed, but blocking really helped us seal the victory.”

Sophomore outside hitter Cody Caldwell had four block assists and one solo block to go with his match-high 16 kills. He also led the winners with 10 digs.

Junior middle blocker Will Connelly had five block assists and one solo denial to go with six kills, while senior outside hitter JB Green had two solo blocks and one block assist. Green also contributed 13 kills and five digs.

Senior Kyle Lawrence (two block assists), senior opposite Cailen Sullivan (one), and senior outside hitter Hamilton Day (one) also punched in with the Sailors’ roofing company.

Junior setter Jackson Carmack had 23 assists and senior setter Darren Leggett had 17 to go with five digs to help the Sailors head into a big week — three league matches including two against highly regarded Esperanza (Monday and Friday) — with added momentum.

“The last couple days, we really focused on blocking and that really showed,” Glenn said. “That was good. I think a lot of it is hand positioning.”

De St. Jean agreed.

“We worked on what to do with our hands and where we want them,” De. St. Jean said. “Blocking a ball with your hands is better than blocking a ball with your arms. [Using one’s arms] is where you see people get tooled [hitters driving kills off blockers and out of bounds for points].

“We were basically not jumping,” De St. Jean said of practicing with the lower net. “We were just getting used to touching the ball with our hands. That actually helped us out a lot tonight. We were improved and we had a lot of blocks.

“It’s not learning new stuff, just basically reiterating stuff that we forgot or got lazy at. We just wanted to get back to the fundamentals.”

BARRY FAULKNER may be reached at (714) 966-4615 or at [email protected].