By Ed Piper
La Jolla's volleyball team is back playing among the "big girls" with its stellar play this season. Coach Kelly Drobeck has the 29-5 Vikings roaring and ready, going into a state regional match on the road Tuesday night, Nov. 6, in Santa Ana against another powerhouse team, Foothill.
Foothill features five hitters with 100 or more kills. That's an arsenal. But a look at La Jolla's statistics reveals the locals send out, not five, but six 100-plus kill artists to the net. Leyla Blackwell, playing at All-CIF level again this season as a junior, has recorded 300 kills, double or triple many of her teammates as well as Tuesday's opponents.
The 6'3" middle hitter is gunning people down at a 45.9-percent clip, which, her coach will tell you, is elite-level performance. Her mother being a coach, her brother a former Viking star for Coach Dave Jones, she stays within herself and lets the game come to her.
Witness Thursday's (Nov. 1) state regional seeding match at home against Del Norte, which sent victorious La Jolla into the Division 1 state playoffs and the losing Lady Nighthawks down to the Division 2 bracket. In the flow of the high-stakes match, Blackwell wasn't prominent in early play as the teams split the first two games.
But then in the third and fourth games, the powerful hitter mixed in some key blocks alongside teammate Monaghan "Mo" Cromeans with some utterly devastating spikes that went almost straight down to the floor on the opposite side of the net--as she got elevation and demonstrated utter authority.
She, of course, isn't a one-woman show. Drobeck has made sure of that in this comeback/rebuilding season. Some young talent has come in in the persons of libero Alex Dinofia, outside hitter Amaya McMillan, and serving/defensive specialist Alex Young.
Kylie "Ky" Vaickus has evolved over this, her freshman season, from a bit player getting her feet wet coming off the bench and playing parts of matches, to a full-fledged starter who complemented La Jolla's other strong hitters Thursday night in the playoff seeding game--Blackwell, Cromeans, junior captain Maya Gessner (a left-hander), even senior Natalie Wittkow.
Drobeck's team is presently ranked seventh in the CIF San Diego Section, up there with the powerhouses, Torrey Pines, Cathedral Catholic, and La Costa Canyon (sitting one-two-three). Crosstown rival Bishop's, to its credit, stands fifth in the MaxPreps rankings, two slots above La Jolla largely on the merits of success based on strength of schedule (opponents for the Lady Knights being assessed at a 23.4 level, the Vikings' foes 16.5).
Foothill, on the other side of the net Tuesday, swept the Crestview League schedule with seven wins without a loss, compiling a 21-4 season record so far. The Vikings may hold a little height advantage at the net over the Lady Knights, who run 6'0", 5'11", 6'0", 6'1", 5'10" among their one-through-five hitters (based on kill totals).
La Jolla boasts 6'3" (Blackwell, as stated), 6'1" (Maya Lightfoot), 6'0" (Gessner), 5'7" (McMillan), 5'9" (Vaickus), and 6'2" (Wittknow) in one through six.
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