By Pete Borello
Prep Volleyball Playoffs
The Los Altos High girls volleyball team will face a mysterious opponent at 6 p.m., Thursday, in the Central Coast Section Division III semifinals at Leland High.
The second-seeded Eagles (25-6) know who they will play, No. 6 Santa Cruz (30-6), but coach Jason Mansfield admits he knows little else about the team.
“I’ve never seen them play at all,” he said. “That’s our biggest fear, because there’s a lot of unknown going on.”
What is known about Santa Cruz: it upset No. 3 Los Gatos in straight games in Saturday’s quarterfinals. Los Altos beat Los Gatos four times during the season, but never in straight games.
“We’re expecting a tough match and we’ll have to play well to win,” Mansfield said. “We need to come in fired up.”
The winner will face either Presentation or Palo Alto for the title at 4:30 p.m., Saturday, at West Valley College in Saratoga.
Los Altos is coming off a pair of straight-game playoff wins, beating No. 15 Notre Dame-San Jose 15-5, 15-11, 16-14 in the opening round and taking care of No. 7 Sacred Heart Cathedral 15-6, 15-12, 15-12 in the quarterfinals at Milpitas High.
Suedy Ezzatyar led the Eagles in both matches with 11 and eight kills, respectively.
Lancers in a laugher
Top-seeded St. Francis wasted little time in beating No. 8 Menlo-Atherton in Saturday’s Division II quarterfinals at Milpitas High.
The Lancers prevailed 15-1, 15-0, 15-7 to advance to today’s semifinals.
St. Francis (25-2) faces No. 4 Aptos (19-6) at 6 p.m. at Santa Clara High. The winner moves on to Friday’s final, slated for 8 p.m. at West Valley.
Against Menlo-Atherton (19-6) sophomores Jessica Gysin and Diane Copenhagen each had 12 kills for the Lancers.
Mustangs tamed
Despite 24 kills from Adrienne Hoopes, No. 6 Homestead fell to No. 3 Leland Saturday in the Division II quarterfinals.
Host Leland pulled out a 15-5, 15-10, 6-15, 15-6 victory over the Mustangs (24-14).
In its opening-round match Nov. 7, Homestead beat visiting No. 11 South San Francisco 15-13, 15-10, 13-15, 15-10.
Los Altos resident Megan Page put down the match-winning kill against South San Francisco (16-14), which led the final game 8-1 early on. The Mustangs rallied after a time out, in which coach John Milkovich said, “The kids decided then and there to take care of it.” Homestead went on a seven-point run to tie the game, then took over.
Patti Withrow finished with a career-high 20 kills.
Spartans stopped
Mountain View failed to make it past the opening round of the Division III playoffs, losing in straight games to host Valley Christian-San Jose Nov. 7.
The 12th-seeded Spartans fell 15-2, 15-11, 16-14 to No. 5 Valley Christian.
“Basically, we weren’t ready to play,” said Mountain View coach Pete Kim, who guided his team to a 21-15 record. “The girls, as a team, came out flat. We tried to turn it on through the match, but Valley Christian was a pretty good team and they didn’t make too many mistakes.”
Despite the disappointing loss, Kim was proud of the way his team performed this year.
“Overall, we had a great season,” he said. “No one expected us to do as well as we have. And next year, we should be improved.”
Titans trounced
No. 5 Gunn couldn’t overcome a slow start in a Division II quarterfinal match at No. 4 Aptos, which won 15-5, 15-7, 15-6 Saturday.
“They came out on fire, and we were anything but on fire,” Gunn coach Evan Barth said.
Audrey Milo led the Titans (20-12) with five kills.
