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Clear this evening then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 56F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph..
Clear this evening then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 56F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.
The Lady Colts may be lacking in height, but they make up for it was some big personalities.
El Camino (3-0 PAL Ocean, 8-2 overall) won a five-set volleyball thriller on its home court Thursday 25-21, 10-25, 25-6, 20-25, 15-10 over Westmoor (1-2, 8-8). And while the Colts’ front-row blocking defense of 5-6 Riana Petterson, 5-4 Melanie Lie-Chin and 5-3 Keilani Der was effective, it was the versatility of junior setter Italia Ghilarducci that won the day.
Ghilarducci scored a match-high 16 kills while adding four aces and a block of her own to lead El Camino to its sixth straight victory, and third in a row to open Peninsula Athletic League Ocean Division play.
“She picked it up and saved us,” El Camino head coach Apollo Madayag said. “She made a good run for us, and she was on fire. From hitting and kills, to setting to pure defense. That was pure heart there. Gorgeous — gorgeous play.”
Nobody in the PAL has a bigger personality than Madayag. His coaching recipe is part cheerleader, part drill sergeant, and all charisma all the time as the fifth-year head coach lives and dies with every volley of every play. And his players continue to respond, as El Camino has posted a winning record every season since he’s taken over the program.
Thursday’s match presented a unique challenge for him, though. As a coach with the SF Tremors Volleyball Club, Madayag prides himself on El Camino players, such as Ghilarducci, who also play for the Tremors. In facing Westmoor, however, there were as many Rams players who he coaches with the Tremors as there were Colts.
“They knew what I was going to do,” Madayag said. “I taught them. So, they knew how to play the defense against me. So, it’s not fair. I have to come up with something new all the time.”
On the other side of the net, Westmoor head coach Rex Mauga-Head is a shrewd and savvy as they come. As challenged as El Camino is height wise, Westmoor has an even shorter roster across the board. And despite battling through injuries to several key players — senior Melanie Chen, Westmoor’s kill leader with 14, was sporting a substantial back brace to lend support for a lower-back injury — Westmoor’s longtime coach continues to get the most out of an always scrappy Westmoor squad.
Mauga-Head’s Buddha-on-a-mountaintop coaching style, however, is the polar opposite of Madayag’s. And while Westmoor was playing shorthanded, Mauga-Head said it was more lapses of focus than it was his team’s stamina that cost the Rams late.
“Of course, it’s hard to play at this gym — the antics that they use,” Mauga-Head said. “So, it’s just the mental. These kids have played through it. And we tried to prepare them as much as we can. I’d say we’re sound physically. Just the mental.”
There were several epic runs by both teams. After El Camino took the opening set, Westmoor fired back in Game 2 thanks to the serving chops of Kaylie Quon, as the junior delivered a 10-point run. She’d go on to record six service aces in the match, including five of them during the second-set run.
“I felt really good and, when I was serving, I wasn’t thinking about it too much,” Quon said.
But El Camino responded in Game 3 with a 10-0 run of its own, as the Colts’ block came to life. Petterson totaled four match blocks, including two early roofs in the third set to take the Colts to a 3-2 lead.
“She’s amazing,” Madayag said of Petterson, who is in just her second year of organized volleyball. “She still has so much potential to grow. She’s a sponge. She just wants to learn more and more and more, and that’s why she continues to work with me.”
Then Ghilarducci started working the pins, firing kills off both the left and right side, before helping the 10-point run with a well-placed dump shot. From there, Ghilarducci went back to that dump shot time and again, with Game 5 kills to give the Colts leads of 3-2, 7-4 and 10-4.
“It was my first five-set game, so it was kind of stressful, but I believed in us,” Der said. “I believed we could push.”
El Camino totaled 17 aces as a team, including match-highs from Penelope Madayag and Isabella Chu, who scored five aces apiece. For Westmoor, Quon added 13 kills.
The PAL Ocean Division is getting top heavy in a hurry. Only two teams have league records above .500, as El Camino and Capuchino are both currently 3-0 in PAL Ocean play. Cap swept past South City by a score of 25-10, 25-11, 25-15 Thursday to win its third straight league match.
Cap travels to El Camino next Thursday for their first of two league meetings.
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