Photos by Ed Piper
Photos by Ed Piper
Going back-to-back, La Jolla's beach volleyball team downed La Costa Canyon, 3-2, in the CIF Division 2 championship match at Mesa College Sat., May 6, to win the 2023 title and take home their second-straight crown.
The pairs of ones (top duo), junior Lindsay Laumann and freshman Paisley Mahn; fours, senior Grayson Lejuwaan and junior Mia Jessen; and fives, juniors Anais Lavoie and Natalie Fu, defeated their LCC foes to gain the three wins necessary for tilting the decision.
Said Viking coach Kelly Drobeck, "It was a true team effort throughout our playoff run and I am so proud of our girls for working so hard and accomplishing the goal we set at the beginning of the season, to defend our title."
In a nail-biter going down to the last game of the last pair, La Jolla's beach volleyball team edged University City, 3-2, on an alternately sunny-and-cloudy Thursday afternoon, May 4, to reach the CIF Division 2 finals at Mesa College Sat., May 6.
With COVID disruption of lineups, rosters, matches, and trainings finally being pretty much put to rest, the Viking girls posted a 2-0 lead early in the afternoon on the Cent sand, the number-four, then number-two pairs sweeping to 2-0 wins (in best-of-three matches).
Then the nail-biting began--for nervous parents sitting and standing on the shady near-end of the courts behind UC's gym, and for Coach Kelly Drobeck, LJ's patient, persistent mentor who has guided the girls through the mess of COVID and beyond.
Fortunes completely reversed. The Centurions clubbed both the Vike fives, then the ones to knot the struggle at 2-2 by 5:00 p.m. (The contest began back at 3:15 p.m.)
It was up to the ongoing match with Kira Shepaski and Katie Murray in the threes, and its outcome against UC's threes. Kira had arrived late, completing a grueling multi-hour exam in AP Stats on the LJHS campus. That's why Drobeck had slotted the number-three pair to play later in the afternoon.
The LJ girls had been treated to a pre-match feast consisting of Jersey Mike's, number seven sandwiches containing turkey and cheese. "No one has barfed yet during a match," joked one of the Viking girls when a reporter asked why the number-seven order.
Murray and Shepaski's match went down to the last game. They prevailed, and La Jolla was into the finals. The title tilt is scheduled for 1 p.m. Sat., May 6, at Mesa College.
La Jolla's talented beach volleyball squad had its number two, three, and four pairs sweep OLP--each duo winning 2-0--as the Vikings thundered over the Pilots to secure their CIF quarterfinal playoff Tues., May 2, on their home sand at South Mission Beach.
Twos Katie Murray and Kira Shepaski, threes Lana Ferrell and Bradleigh Ryan, and fours Grayson Lejuwaan and Mia Jessen each skillfully bulled their way to two-game best-of-three shutouts of their OLP counterparts. Thus, the three duos gained the three wins that La Jolla needed to prevail in the match.
In Coach Kelly Drobeck's alignment, her team didn't even need ones Lindsay Laumann and Paisley Mahn and fives Anais Lavoie and Natalie Fu to win in the later afternoon to move on to the CIF Division 2 semifinals Thurs., May 4. So, though Laumann-Mahn and Lavoie-Fu played and won, they didn't even count the scores since they weren't weren't necessary.
Drobeck explained that normally the Vikings would start their twos, fours, and sixes in the first part of the afternoon match (sixes not counting in the five-pair scoring, but keeping the sixes active and competing). With Advanced Placement (AP) test(s) Wednesday at school, some players needed to get home after the match to study for the college-credit exams.
The ones are held in reserve, till the "second round" of the afternoon, with the thinking in a tight match that their result would help determine the team's outcome. On this day, the ones weren't necessary.
The Vikings are seeded number three in the lower end of the bracket, meeting second-seed University City in the semis at UCHS's campus courts Thurs., May 4. Atop the bracket, La Costa Canyon is one and Country Day is two. OLP was seeded 11th.
La Jolla continues to compete using the prevailing model of club/school teams to achieve and maintain excellence. Athletes stay active in their main sport through club play under expert coaching in the offseason, when school teams are not in competition.
Thus, the girls are able to compete with classmates during the Spring season. They often comment on the pluses of "playing with our friends" for healthy and fun relationship-building. Meanwhile, in club/travel programs, they grow up learning and perfecting their main sport with instruction from near-full-time coaches expert in volleyball. The latter is a pay-for-play system.
