LAKEPORT — The Clear Lake Cardinals are hungry for a North Coast Section Division 5 volleyball championship this season and have the team and the appetite to pull it off. They got their first nibble on Tuesday night against the Hoopa Valley Warriors.
In a first-round match that was more appetizer than full-blown meal, No. 2 seed Clear Lake rolled past No. 15 Hoopa 25-12, 25-9, 25-18 to reach Saturday’s quarterfinal round against No. 7 seed Drew High School of San Francisco, a 25-22, 23-25, 25-23, 25-17 winner over No. 10 seed International of San Francisco in another first-round match Tuesday. Action begins at 7 p.m. at the Clear Lake High School gym.
The Clear Lake (29-3) vs. Hoopa (6-9) playoff opener marked the second time this season the two teams have squared off and the second time the Cardinals have won big — they prevailed 25-13, 25-13 back in early September during pool play at the Arcata Tournament, which Clear Lake went on to win.
The Cardinals thoroughly dominated the Warriors early on, leading the entire way in the first two sets and never surrendering more than two points in a row to the Warriors, who were overwhelmed up front by the likes of Abby Mertle and Stella Hill, each with seven kills, and Quincy Paarsch with five kills.
“We played good, really strong,” Clear Lake head coach Marci Psalmonds said of the first two sets.
The third set was a different story as Hoopa found the holes in the Clear Lake defense a number of times and also took advantage of numerous Clear Lake errors, both serving and hitting, to build a 16-10 lead.
“We enjoy playing at a fast pace and that wasn’t happening,” Psalmonds said of the slower tempo of the Warriors. “We were playing down to their level.”
After calling a pair of timeouts to refocus her squad, Psalmonds said the Cardinals began to respond.
“They have to feel the pressure sometimes or they just go through the motions. I knew we were going to kick it in at some point and we did.”
Clear Lake won 15 of the next 17 points to take the third set and the match, with both Mertle and Paarsch collecting a handful of kills and Rubi Ford serving several points, including two aces, down the stretch. Ford led the team with 16 service points on the night while Mertle had nine.
“Abby played well,” Psalmonds said of her senior middle hitter who closed out the second set with a block on set point, one of her team-leading three blocks.
Psalmonds also gave high marks to the play of outside hitter Hill and libero Amber Smart.
“Hill (who had the kill that ended the first set) did a good job offensively and defensively. Smart played her position well,” Psalmonds said.
Clear Lake had a couple of starters at less than 100 percent because of illness and it had an effect on the team’s overall play, according to Psalmonds.
“Our setting was off tonight and we had too many service errors,” she said. “We can’t afford to do that against the better teams. We can’t do that Saturday night.”
Clear Lake reached the Division 5 quarterfinals a year ago and lost to Urban of San Francisco, this year’s No. 1 seed, in three sets at Lakeport. If those two teams meet again this season, it will be in the title match Nov. 5 with the section championship riding on the line.
