YUCAIPA — Momentum.
It was in Yucaipa’s corner for a set and a half in Wednesday night’s CIF Southern Section Division 6 boys volleyball quarterfinal match against No. 2-seeded El Toro.
Then, behind a late second-set rally, momentum swung to El Toro and never left as the Chargers rallied for an 18-25, 32-30, 25-16, 25-17 win which gave them a semifinal home match Saturday against Laguna Blanca.
“Two years ago these guys were brand new volleyball players, so to get to this point is incredible and Saturday can’t get here fast enough,” El Toro coach Sean Dixon said. “That’s a really good Yucaipa team over there but after that first set my guys came together, decided they didn’t want their story to end three hours from home, and went about changing the narrative so that they’d get another match together.”
Ryan Lim led El Toro (16-15) with 25 kills. Cooper Fry had 16 kills, and Caleb Tygart added 14 in the loss for Yucaipa.
Yucaipa (17-9) never trailed during the opening set. The Thunderbirds jumped out to a 14-7 lead behind four kills from Fry, another three by Tygart, and an ace by James “JR” Lopez. Thomas Liu’s kill cut El Toro’s deficit to 15-12, but the Chargers got no closer and dropped their second set of the postseason.
El Toro was trailing early in the second set before Ben Earnshaw’s kill down the line tied it at 12. Yucaipa went on a 5-1 run to take a 17-13 lead after a kill by Tygart. That lead then reached 19-14 on a solo block by Jake Lane, but four attacking errors and a net violation by the T-Birds allowed El Toro to pull even at 22. The Chargers had set point five times before finishing off the win on an ace.
“We just made a few really bad errors at a bad time in that second set, and then when (El Toro) started to put things together offensively, we shut down just a little bit in that moment,” Yucaipa coach Megan Marnati said.
“What’s been impressive about these guys is the fact that they really had to learn on the fly with tryouts coming three days before our opening match. Hopefully this is a springboard to more of the same next year.”
The Chargers carried that momentum into the third set, taking a 12-3 lead behind three kills from Lim and an ace from Jeremy Gould. Tygart cut Yucaipa’s deficit to 14-10 with a solo block but the T-Birds got no closer and dropped the set on a service error.
Yucaipa had five different leads halfway through the fourth set, but El Toro would not let the T-Birds get away. Lim had five kills to keep the Chargers within striking distance, giving the Chargers a 12-11 lead with a kill out of the back row. A kill by Isaiah Dimas cut El Toro’s lead to 16-15, but a 9-2 run by the Chargers ended the match.
Earnshaw and Liu combined on three straight blocks in that run.
“We were winless my freshman season and had gone through four coaches in a four year stretch before coach Dixon came in,” Lim said. “He’s been there through thick and thin so as much as we want this for ourselves we really want it for him.
“It’ll be nice to be at home on Saturday after back-to-back road games because we don’t have that long trip to allow our minds to drift from volleyball. We’ll be locked in and ready to go when we get to the gym.”
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