CdM wins OC Champs

HUNTINGTON BEACH — The Corona del Mar High boys’ volleyball team was the designated home team for Monday night’s Orange County Championships title match.

But the Sea Kings haven’t necessarily felt at home in this match in past years. They lost to Newport Harbor in the OC Championships finals in 2012. Then, the past two seasons, they fell to Huntington Beach.

This time, Corona del Mar found a way.

Senior middle blocker Will Hunter, the tournament MVP, had a match-high 14 kills as CdM outlasted Los Alamitos, 25-20, 19-25, 15-9, to win the Division 1 title at Edison High. Coach Steve Conti said it’s CdM’s first Orange County Championships title since 2009.

Senior outside hitter and co-captain Sam Kobrine (nine kills) and junior middle Mitch Haly (one solo block and four block assists) also earned all-tournament team status for the Sea Kings (10-3).

Hunter came up big in the third and decisive set, when he hammered home five kills. CdM was up just 9-8 but pulled away with senior libero Austin Cottrell serving. Sophomore outside Brandon Browning recorded a kill, his sixth of the match to go with two block assists. Then Browning and Hunter combined on a block to give the Sea Kings an 11-8 lead, forcing Los Alamitos Coach Mike Whitcomb to call timeout.

“Will has just played like a man possessed, that’s the best way I can put it, in a good way,” Conti said. “He’s showed up for every single match. There’s no doubt in my mind that he earned that MVP accolade. There was a lot of defensive focus [on him]. They were bunching in that left side and putting two up on him, and he just finds different ways to score. Inch for inch, I think he’s as good as any middle out there in high school that I’ve seen.”

Hunter continued to prove it late in the third set. His tip kill grew the lead to four, then he had another kill flush off the left sideline to again make it four at 13-9. Hunter added another easy kill off a Los Alamitos overpass, and the match ended when the Griffins (13-3) were called for a double contact.

The Sea Kings started two other sophomores besides Browning as opposite Kevin Kobrine had three kills and a block and setter Patrick Paragas tallied 20 assists. CdM is still without senior setter Matt Ctvrtlik (sprained ankle).

“He’s starting to dress out for practice,” Conti said. “He’s doing a little more each day, but we’ll just kind of evaluate him from week to week.”

CdM fell behind early in both Game 1 and Game 2. The Sea Kings were able to come back and win the first game but the same wasn’t true in the second, when Los Al senior co-captain Brian Beggs recorded four of his nine kills. Beggs and senior setter Adam Simonetti also earned all-tournament team honors.

CdM pulled within 19-18 late in Game 2 after Los Alamitos was called for four contacts to end the longest point of the match. But the Griffins won five of the final six points to force it to go the distance.

“It was a little bit of what we’ve seen from the Sea Kings so far this season,” Conti said. “We’ve seen flashes of brilliance, and flashes where I think we kind of lose our focus and get a little bit comfortable at times. At the same time, I want to commend Los Al. In Game 2, I think we took some good swings at some balls, and they out-defended us. Some of that was on us, and some of that was what Los Al was doing on their side. They kind of fed off some of their defensive plays and got some good transition swings. When someone else is playing defense like that, you know, I wish we would have matched their defensive intensity a little bit.”

The effort in Game 3 was there for the Sea Kings, who were able to claim the first-place trophy for the first time in seven years. They also rebounded from a tough showing in their first tournament of the season, the Best of the West tournament, where they finished in 15th place in the gold division.

Hunter said the Sea Kings gained confidence from a Orange County Championships quarterfinal victory over a tough San Clemente squad on Saturday, which CdM won, 15-13, in the third set. Again in that match, CdM won the first set but lost the second.

“It means a lot to win this tournament, especially coming from the San Diego tournament,” Hunter said. “It was the first time playing with this team and we wanted to play a lot better, but we didn’t do that well. It was good to play another tournament and end up winning it.

“I think our execution was fine mainly, but here and there we’d make some bad service errors or some stupid errors that we can’t afford to make against some of these teams. In the long run, we can’t afford to make those errors against a Loyola or a Huntington team. And in the San Diego tournament we were kind of quiet and didn’t play with a lot of energy. That was one of our main focuses, just to come with energy, and I think we did that pretty well in this tournament.”

The Oilers, the three-time defending CIF Southern Section Division 1 champions who have won a national record 120 straight matches, were not in the Orange County Championships this season. Hunter said CdM would like another shot at Huntington Beach, which defeated the Sea Kings in five sets in last year’s Division 1 title match.

For now, however, feeling at home in the OC Championships title match is a good building block, especially for a fairly young CdM team. Not that Conti is using that as an excuse.

“We’ve got some seniors on the court that lead by example too,” he said. “We’re a ways through our season. Maybe a couple of weeks ago, we could use that as an excuse or a reason, but I think we’ve played enough volleyball now where it doesn’t matter what age we are. I thought some of our younger guys did real well tonight.”

CdM opens Pacific Coast League play at University on Tuesday night.