By Ed Piper
La Jolla volleyball coach David Jones and his talented though inconsistent team may have a secret plan that led them into the Division 1 playoffs.
The ups and downs of the present team--following a season in which the Viking boys were nationally ranked--have driven more than one person to distraction. La Jolla is presently 18-21 on the season, finishing a subpar 3-5 through the Western League schedule.
One member of the LJHS volleyball family commented earlier in the 2019 season: "Just trying to stay patient with this season."
Jones, himself, has had to ride the roller coaster of impressive win, alternating with confounding loss.
The Vikings feature 6'8" Nathaniel Gates, a nationally-recognized hitter. Also, Sam Kaseff, another 6'" hitter, adds to the punch up front. La Jolla has several other experienced, proficient players with both court and sand training.
Gates, named to a national team playing this summer for the second straight year, leads the team with 146 kills, with a kill percentage of 37.2 percent, behind only Kaseff among regulars.
Nathaniel has 31 blocks, tied for third behind junior Tristan Morris's 37 and Kaseff's 33. Harry Kaseff, Sam's younger brother, also has 31 stops at the net.
Nate also leads Jones' boys with 23 service aces, ahead of Sam Kaseff (20) and Sam Smith (14).
The older Kaseff has recorded 126 kills, and has a high 39.9 percent kill rate.
Micah Cunningham is La Jolla's third senior captain, a 6-foot setter.
Sam's partner in sand volleyball for LJHS last fall, Cunningham has 62 digs, to place him among the top five on the squad behind Nolan Pitruka (90), Gates (83), and Ryan Le (71), tied with Sam Kaseff.
Micah also has 154 assists, second only to Harry Kaseff, who has 192. No one else has more than 12.
Yet La Jolla's 3-1 win at higher-ranked Mission Hills Wed., April 30--the Vikings are the 10th seed, the Grizzlies were seventh--had red-and-black faithful going, "Whew, the good team showed up tonight."
Here's the possible method to the LJHS "madness": More and more, coaches in various sports are debating the relative merits of going into the elite Open Division playoffs, versus the lower Division 1 bracket.
Look at it this way: If your team is a seventh or eighth seed in the Open Division, at the bottom of the bracket, it's very likely you're not going to advance far in those extremely tough playoffs. Yet a measure of prestige is connected merely to being selected among the top eight teams in the county, with the word "Open" attached to the invite.
On the other hand, coaches who have already been to an Open Division playoff in the three years that the elite division has existed, and seen their talented team mauled by a superior high seed, thus ending their season without a title, have begun to consider placement in the Division 1 playoff not such a bad thing.
On campus, the student body considers a championship a championship. If your team wins the Division 1 CIF title, the trophy and banner still say "CIF Champion" on them.
Thus, the honeymoon period of the Open era has passed. Coaches are thinking more practically. They may prefer being passed over for qualification for the Open Division bracket, in favor of landing in the survivable Division 1 postseason tournament.
Applying that to Dave Jones' volleyball team, things don't look too bad for the Vikings as they travel to second-seed Carlsbad Friday night, May 3, for a second-round match. They're into the quarterfinals. They played good ball, well enough to overwhelm host Mission Hills in four games, in the opening round. And another consistent effort would land them in the Division 1 semifinals.
Of course, we can't surmise that the inconsistent Westbourne spikers have planned this placement in the lower playoffs just so they have a more likely title shot. But it could work out to look that way.
Here's to Jones going easy on the Tums, and Gates and company putting together a unified effort from the start versus the Lancers.
No comments:
Post a Comment