SD Prep Sports: Boys Volleyball

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MIRA MESA, May 25, 2001 -- From the brink of elimination to ecstasy defined the final heart-pound moments of last Friday's San Diego Section Division II boys volleyball championship matchup between the top-seeded Eastlake Titans and third-seeded Valhalla Norsemen at Mira Mesa High School.

Trailing 10-14 with match point served three times against them, the Norsemen turned in a heroic stand to finish off a 10-1 comeback run that culminated in the school's first-ever CIF championship banner in the sport.

"Unbelievable!" exclaimed Norsemen coach Thomas Hunter after his team snatched a most improbable victory from the apparent jaws of defeat.

"It was so emotional-driven, especially the last two games," said Valhalla senior outside hitter Caleb Gundert of the Norsemen's 7-15, 15-3, 15-8, 4-15, 16-14 championship run to the division title. "We peaked at the end of the season. We knew that we could beat this team."

While the last statement proved to be true, it clearly wasn't easy.

Team effort, more than anything else, underscored Valhalla's division championship.

Senior opposite hitter Tyler McCallan finished the five-game marathon set with 20 kills; he was supported by junior outside hitter Blake Fowler, who led Valhalla with 26 kills, and junior middle blocker Bryan Smith, who contributed eight blocks, and senior blocker Andy Caronna, who tallied four blocks and eight kills. It was Smith who contributed the game-tying and game-winning points in the decisive Game 5.

"I have a lot of confidence in my teammates. If I go up to hit, I know there are guys who are going to pass, block and dig. We all do our part and that makes it come together," explained McCallan amid jubilant celebrations that punctuated the Norsemen's 23-6 season.

The Titans were returning four players from their 1999 Division II championship squad: seniors Josiah Clark, Brandon Crowley, Josh Moreno and Rodrigo Arancibia. The experience looked as formidable in action as it did on paper but the overall inconsistent play of the South Bay League champions proved to be their undoing.

Eastlake (31-6) had service on match -- and championship title -- point on three occasions before the Norsemen dug down deep to stall what seemed the inevitable and instead place victory on their side. The final six points in Game 5 -- all scored by Valhalla -- signaled both one of the most brutal collapses in a championship-caliber contest and one of the most inspirational comebacks that one will ever witness.

Either way, it was a stunning masterpiece of just how many turns momentum can take.

"We won the second and third game and lost the fourth game because we were too excited from winning the third game," Gundert offered. "We had to get back to playing our game and get the crowd back into it. I've never seen our team come together like it did. I have a lot of respect for Eastlake. They've got a really good team."

After taking an early 4-1 lead in the deciding fifth and final game, Valhalla suffered an untimely power outage as the Titans responded with an almost invincible 12-2 run to take a 13-6 lead and seemingly put the Norsemen on the ropes.

The spirited Game 5 rally evoked memories of a similar situation the Norsemen faced in the fourth game of an earlier season matchup against San Marcos in which Valhalla recovered from a 3-14 deficit to prevail 16-14 on the strength of 13 unanswered points.

The stage for the crucial comeback was set up by four straight points earned in the middle of Game 5 after it appeared the Titans had all but clinched the title. Instead of staring at a 6-13 deficit, Valhalla retained a glimmer of hope by trailing 10-13. But it would remain a tough mountain to scale.

If the Norsemen were looking for suitable inspiration, they need not have looked farther than their own team. Senior setter Zac Doroski had rolled an ankle in a previous contest and was on crutches the morning of the team's championship clash against the Titans. He finished the five championship-round games with 63 assists.

Hunter also credited Gundert, the team's dig specialist, with a critical role in helping the team secure its history-making title. Gundert had 12 digs on the evening-- eight in the critical going of Game 5.

"He made plays to help turn things around. Every one of my guys contributed to winning the match," Hunter said.

After the opening volley, it was not hard to see how the ebb and flow of the contest would ultimately play out. The games quickly turned into feast or famine for the opposing squads.

"It was all the outside big guns swinging away," Valhalla's Hunter said. "We had some clutch support from Tyler and Blake -- our two big hammers. We needed them to deliver and they delivered."

In Game 1, it was Eastlake's power hitting that delivered and looked to make easy work of the upstart Norsemen, who had defeated Mar Vista and Ramona (seeded seventh) to advance to the title match against the top-seeded Titans. With Crowley and Clark let loose on the court and supported by Moreno and senior classmate Steve Eros, Eastlake marched out to a quick 4-0 lead and led 9-2 before the Grossmont South League champions could finally get their hitting game together. Valhalla closed to within 11-7 before the Titans regained the momentum with four consecutive points to close out the victory in the opening game.

The momentum for the rest of the evening was likely set in the early minutes of Game 2 with a lengthy series of sideouts preventing neither team from gaining a foothold. It was at this point that McCallan, in particular, caught fire and the Norsemen quickly showed that they were not going to lie down and let Eastlake steamroller them. Valhalla responded to the challenge by taking an 8-1 lead and repeatedly capitalized on Titan mental mistakes en route to a shockingly easy 15-3 victory to tie the teams on the scoreboard with one win apiece.

Game 3 was harder fought, though Eastlake continued to make the type of unforced errors that a championship team clearly had no business making. The Norsemen -- now backed by the ferocious hitting of McCallan and Fowler and the inspired play of Smith and Doroski -- were more than happy to take advantage of that, and in the process, display their championship mettle.

The Titans led 2-0 to start Game 3, only to trail 3-2 before regaining the advantage at 6-3. A stunning run of nine unanswered points by the Norsemen gave the underdogs a commanding 12-6 margin en route to a final seven-point 15-8 win and a 2-1 lead in games.

Whatever magic Valhalla possessed in the middle two games, evaporated in Game 4. With their backs to the wall, the Titans came out with a thundering roar on both offense and defense, silencing the Norsemen's sea of orange-clad supporters by scoring the game's first nine points. The Eastlake lead mushroomed to 14-2 before Clark served match-point for a final 15-4 rout and a 2-2 deadlock in games on the scoreboard.

"We lost our focus but managed to suck it back," explained Titan coach Jim Knox, who was celebrating his birthday but whose team could not quite give him the birthday present he wished for.

The Game 5 scenario marked the first time that both teams had been extended to the limit this season. With Eastlake leading 14-10, Crowley was the first to serve match point, then Moreno and then Rodrigo Arancibia as the Titans were unable to secure the one point they needed to drive the final lance into the Norsemen's championship comeback bid. A nerve-racking series of eight sideouts between the teams kept the score unchanged until a kill by Fowler finally broke the stalemate to get Valhalla rolling. The Norsemen would not relinquish the serve thereafter, reeling off six more uncontested points to zero in for the final kill.

"We got it back in Game 4 but it wasn't enough," conceded the Titans' Clark, who paced the division runners-up with 25 kills. "We did the same thing in the second and third games -- we got stunned. We just had to finish (one point). We didn't take care of business."

Though obviously disappointed by the turn of events for his team, Clark -- the South Bay League Player of the Year -- remained complimentary of the Norsemen. "Valhalla was by far the biggest team we went up against (in the playoffs). They gave us a tough time."

Crowley contributed 16 kills and five blocks for Eastlake while Moreno totaled eight kills, five aces and 18 blocks.

Photographer Paul Martinez' work can be indexed at www.photosport.com.