Huntington Beach boys’ volleyball beats Newport Harbor in Tesoro Tournament final
RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA — The Newport Harbor High boys’ volleyball team suffered defeat just once last season on its path to the CIF Southern Section Division 1 and CIF State Division I titles.
A challenger announced its arrival in the season-opening Tesoro Tournament, albeit one that the Sailors are quite familiar with.
Huntington Beach used a formidable block to beat Newport Harbor 25-21, 25-15 in the best-of-three Gold Division championship match on Monday night at Tesoro High.
Niko Colburn led the Oilers (7-0) with six kills. The senior outside hitter was named the MVP of the two-day tournament.
The Oilers exuded confidence throughout the match against the Surf League rival Sailors. After dealing the first loss of the season to the defending champions, Colburn was certainly optimistic about where his team could end up.
“I think we can win a ring, to be honest,” Colburn said. “I think we can get a national championship if we all work for the rest of the year, if we continue growing as a team.”
As a team, Huntington Beach tallied 11 total blocks. Noah Robin had four kills and three blocks. Drake Goering also had three blocks, and Cayman LaFontaine provided five kills and 2½ blocks.
“Confidence is a really big thing in volleyball,” said Robin, a Long Beach State commit who transferred from Downey. “Our block is huge. I don’t think anybody is going to get past it, in CIF and so on, so I’m hyped for this season.”
Robin was also named to the all-tournament team.
Huntington Beach swept Laguna Beach 25-18, 25-14 in its semifinal match. Oilers coach Craig Pazanti said that the team’s blocking played a big role against the Breakers (5-2).
The Oilers utilized William Lawler (10 assists) and Ryan Haynes (eight assists) in a two-setter system, which Pazanti said allowed his team to take advantage of its overall size.
“We’re a pretty physical group, and running the 6-2 [offense] allows us to have big kids in every spot,” Pazanti said. “We don’t have anyone who is 6-[foot]-8 or 6-9, but we have a lot of guys that are around 6-5 or 6-6. We’re steady across the board. We’ve been spending a lot of time in the gym working on our blocking, and I think it’s almost contagious. You block one, and then you block another one. Everybody just wants to keep doing more and more.
“We did a really good job all weekend … putting pressure on attackers by just taking away areas of court. Our philosophy is that we’re not trying to block every ball. We’re just trying to put good hands up in front and let the ball kind of do what it does.”
Brendan Read had a match-high seven kills and a service ace for Newport Harbor (6-1) in the final. Sam Walton, formerly the understudy to Joe Karlous (Pepperdine) at setter, had 22 assists.
Rees Classen added six kills for the Sailors. Caden Garrido and Dane Carroll each had five kills.
“Sam did a great job,” said Sailors coach Eric Vallely, who took over the program following the retirement of Rocky Ciarelli at the end of last season. “He made a lot of really good choices on the offense, dug some balls here and there, and he competed the entire time.
“I’m very happy with Sam’s play, and I’m looking forward to us continuing to improve as the season goes on.”
Newport Harbor needed a comeback in the third set to advance past San Clemente 20-25, 25-20, 15-13 in the semifinals.
Garrido, a returning middle blocker for the Sailors, and Walton both received all-tournament team honors.
Edison (4-3) reached the Silver Division final, which Bellflower St. John Bosco won 20-25, 25-17, 15-11. The Chargers had Sam Warren and Davey Singer selected as all-tournament honorees.
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