Sailors finish on top

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CYPRESS — Bags and flowers exchanged hands at midcourt.

Swinging ensued.

Newport Harbor High knocked out Los Alamitos in the CIF Southern Section Division I-AA girls’ volleyball championship.

The Sailors settled their score with their Sunset League foes Saturday night, winning, 27-29, 25-19, 25-23, 25-20, at Cypress College.

The 10th final appearance for Newport Harbor Coach Dan Glenn turned out to be a slugfest. Out of the hundreds of matches Glenn has been a part of in his 24 years at the school, he expected a fight.

Glenn is a fighter himself, as he’s battling a rare form of cancer in his right eye. The eye saw everything he wanted it to see in the first final between Newport Harbor and Los Alamitos.

Sixteen Sailors lined up near the net, standing proud and tall at the end. They reached the top for the first time in their careers on this stage.

The top-seeded Sailors (29-6) gave Glenn his seventh section title. Having won it before, Glenn held the plaque for a moment, then handed it to his girls.

Senior middle blocker Katey Thompson carried the plaque around, hoisting it so everyone inside the packed gym could see it, touch it. Thompson didn’t want to let it go after the Sailors claimed their first section crown since 2002.

“They’re all real, real special,” Glenn said of his titles, while watching his girls celebrate at the other end of the court. “I’m so excited for my seniors because we worked so hard for four years. We talked about being in [the] CIF [final]. They earned this.”

To become champions, the Sailors showed their resiliency after dropping the opening game to the No. 2-seeded Griffins (30-8).

The two teams shared the Sunset League crown in the regular season, each winning on its home court. Saturday’s site was a neutral one and for the ultimate prize.

The opening game explained how even these two volleyball giants are on the court. Twenty times the score was tied. The game went back and forth, the equivalent of two boxers in a title bout exchanging blows.

The problem was no one wanted to go down.

“We came out knowing that it was going to be a full on war,” said Thompson after finishing with 12 kills, three service aces, three blocks and five assisted blocks. “This was the night we come out and prove ourselves.”

The first time these two programs faced each other on Oct. 13, Los Alamitos played without outside hitter Jane Croson and lost. There was talk the Sailors couldn’t beat the Griffins with the junior on the court.

An abdominal injury held Croson back that first match. She returned for the second league match and the Griffins prevailed to split the league title with Newport Harbor.

In the third match between these two rivals, Croson lost steam in the final three games. Croson began to strike the ball into the net, long, and when the Sailors attacked her in the back row, her one-handed dig attempts were no match for Newport Harbor’s attack.

Kirby Burnham led the Sailors with 15 kills and Maddy Brown contributed 13 kills and 10 digs. Brown hammered crucial shots late in the fourth game.

Cinnamon Sary fed precise passes, finishing with 42 assists. The sophomore helped prevent the Griffins from winning their fourth title in the program’s history. The Sailors recorded the program’s eighth section championship.

The two programs kept swinging like they did in Game 1, which spilled into overtime.

The antenna that gave the Sailors a couple of headaches down the stretch of Game 1, costing them the game, wasn’t a problem again. With Fox Sports Net televising the match, the Sailors fought back.

With LL Cool J’s classic “Mama Said Knock You Out” blaring during a timeout, Newport Harbor went on to deliver the hardest blows.

“They were more physical than us,” Los Alamitos Coach Dave Huber said. “[It’s] not something many teams have been able to do to us this year, beat us at the net the way they did. We probably made some mistakes, got a little tentative, and that’s all it took.”