LAKE COUNTY >> Four Lake County volleyball and soccer teams participated in the quarterfinal round of the North Coast Section playoffs on Saturday night and all came up short in their bid to reach the semifinals.
In volleyball action, No. 4 seed Clear Lake fell 25-23, 25-23, 25-20 to No. 5 Berean Christian of Walnut Creek in the Division V playoffs while No. 6 Kelseyville lost to No. 3 Lick-Wilmerding in the Division IV playoffs, the San Francisco school rallying for a 21-25, 25-22, 25-17, 25-21 victory.
In Division I girls soccer action, it was No. 5 Technology beating No. 4 Middletown 5-1 at Middletown, and No. 1 Eureka shutting out visiting Clear Lake, the No. 8 seed, 3-0.
Volleyball
Ber. Christian def. Clear Lake
Clear Lake, the co-North Central League I champion, ran into a Berean Christian squad that concentrated its efforts on stopping the Cardinals’ big hitters – Kiana Richardson and Camille Donald – at the net.
“The blocked the crap out of us,” Clear Lake coach Marci Psalmonds said of the Eagles (21-7), who are on the road Wednesday to play No. 1 seed University in the semifinals.
While Donald (14 kills) and Richardson (12 kills) certainly had respectable performances in their final high school match, the damage they were able to inflict was limited by Berean Christian’s ability to blunt those kill attempts at the net.
Between the blocking abilities of Elisabeth Dudziak, sister Zippy Dudziak, Elizabeth Dutton and Rebecca Jones, the Eagles were able to stop the Cardinals’ ferocious hitting attack in its tracks at key points of the match, of which there were many, especially in the first two sets.
Clear Lake’s hitters also had trouble keeping the ball inbounds. They committed 12 hitting errors in the three sets, most of those mishits landing well beyond the back line.
“You shouldn’t have that many for three sets,” Psalmonds said.
Clear Lake also tried to dink the ball around Berean Christian’s front-row players, but the Eagles’ defense picked up most of those balls.
“We just couldn’t overcome their blocks,” Psalmonds said.
Berean Christian’s attacks were formidable in their own right, especially when the sophomore Zippy Dudziak was anywhere near the ball, either up front or well behind the net.
“She has a deep attack ability,” Psalmonds said of Dudziak, who led the Eagles with 15 kills.
“We knew we had to stop her,” Berean Christian coach Lucas Abbott said of Clear Lake’s Richardson. “No. 10 is a great player and our key to the game was concentrating on her. I felt we were able to do that.”
Psalmonds said it’s never easy to lose that final match because you don’t prepare for it.
“It’s not something you think about,” she said. “And then it’s over. I had a great group of seniors and they had a really good season. We got a pennant for our league.”
Clear Lake (27-6) loses seven seniors to graduation, four of them starters, including outside hitters Richardson and Donald and middle hitters Valerie Hutton and Corin Alakszay.
Lick-Wilmerding def. K’ville
In Division IV action on Saturday, Kelseyville won its first set with Lick-Wildmerding before the San Francisco school responded by winning the next three sets and the match.
No other match details or results were available.
Soccer
Tech 5, M’town 1
At Middletown, Tech stunned NCL I co-champion Middletown in the opening minutes, scoring twice on headers set up by corner kicks to grab a 2-0 lead.
“It happened like ‘bang-bang,’” Middletown coach Lamont Kucer said. “It put our girls on their heels, they were like ‘Oh God, what happened?’”
Tech, the runner-up in the NCL II this season, added two more goals before halftime to take a commanding 4-0 lead.
“We were as prepared as we could be,” Kucer said of the week leading up to the match. “We had a really good week of practice.”
Aly Ferguson’s penalty kick to open the second half got Middletown as close as 4-1, but the Mustangs couldn’t generate any more offense. Tech picked up an insurance goal later in the half.
“Our seniors were pretty emotional afterward,” Kucer said.
Middletown, closes out the season at 17-4-2.
“Overall we went out and got a league title (the school’s 10th straight), and that was our first goal. We achieved that.”
Eureka 3, Clear Lake 0
At Eureka, top-seeded Eureka scored three times in the first half and went on to shut out Clear Lake, ending the Cardinals’ season at 12-9-1.
“I couldn’t have asked any more of my players,” Clear Lake coach Tommy Burke said. “We played really hard, as hard as we could.”
The difference in the game was Eureka junior forward Olivia Stone, who did all of the Loggers’ scoring.
“We tried to shut her down, but she’s a handful,” Burke said. “We made a couple of mistakes in the beginning that cost us.”
Clear Lake’s defense stood firm in the second half, but the Cardinals couldn’t generate much in the way of offense.
“I can’t complain,” Burke said. “I feel like we did the best we could against a very good team. Obviously the girls would have liked to win, but they knew they had played hard.”
Clear Lake loses seven seniors, six of them starters, to graduation.
