LAKEPORT >> There was a time when Anderson Valley of Boonville played some of the best defense in the Redwood Empire’s small-school volleyball ranks. The Panthers would beat teams simply by wearing them down and letting them make most of the mistakes.
That’s not the case this season.
“Their defense is not as strong as it has been,” Clear Lake coach Marci Psalmonds said on Tuesday evening after the Cardinals beat the the Panthers 25-18, 25-14, 25-19 in the opening round of the North Coast Section Division V playoffs at Clear Lake High School in Lakeport.
Clear Lake also swept Anderson Valley in a non-league match back in early September and the Cardinals (22-11) were every bit as dominant the second time around, led by a trio of big hitters in Kiana Richardson (13 kills), Camille Donald (11 kills) and Valerie Hutton (11 kills). Clear Lake has other offensive weapons as well, including its lone senior Courtney Hiatt (five kills), but it was Richardson, Donald and Hutton who took turns leading the way on Tuesday.
Next up for Clear Lake is a quarterfinal-round matchup with No. 3 seed San Francisco Waldorf (26-7) on Saturday in San Francisco. Waldorf, the No. 3 seed in the Division V field, swept Sonoma Academy 25-7, 25-6, 25-13 in a first-round match on Tuesday.
Compared to Clear Lake’s most recent matches, key North Central League I contests with Kelseyville and St. Helena last week, Tuesday’s contest was a slow-paced affair, according to Psalmonds.
“We really never got much momentum going,” Psalmonds said. “We kind of play to our opponents pace and tonight that was slow.”
Anderson Valley grabbed a 6-3 lead early in the first set, prompting Psalmonds to call a timeout. The Cardinals responded and rallied back for a 7-6 lead, Madi Ferguson’s ace breaking a 6-all tie. They never trailed again the rest of the night.
Clear Lake enjoyed comfortable leads late in all three sets although Anderson Valley, a team that tries to surprise its opponents with quick attacks instead of setting up for the big kill, kept the Cardinals honest with a handful of mini-runs. But the Panthers couldn’t sustain any of their small spurts of offense, even after getting as close as 21-19 in the third set. Clear Lake had the answer each time, whether it was a well-timed Hutton ace (she led the team with four), a monster kill by Richardson (and she had plenty of those), or a rally-sustaining dig from the back row from the likes of libero Ferguson that allowed the Cardinals to win the point.
“We’ll need to pick it up,” Psalmonds said with an eye toward Saturday’s 7 p.m. match against Waldorf.
Psalmonds, the longtime coach of the Cardinals, said this is the first time Clear Lake has advanced past the first round of the playoffs during her time at the school. Prior to this season, the Cardinals were a Division IV team. The veteran coach advanced out of the first round many times in Division V during her Upper Lake coaching days.
If the sixth-seeded Cardinals upset Waldorf on Saturday, they would move on to the semifinals next Wednesday.
Richardson and Donald finished the match with 10 digs apiece to lead Clear Lake. Richardson also had three aces. Setter Kylie Udy recorded 27 assists and Ferguson had seven digs.
