By Pete Borello

After winning the first two games, the Los Altos High girls volleyball team almost let last Saturday’s Central Coast Section quarterfinal match slip away.

A stubborn and scrappy South San Francisco team battled back to force a decisive fifth game at Santa Clara High.

After some motivational talks from coach Dave Winn, the second-seeded Eagles hung on to win the match 15-3, 15-11, 10-15, 7-15, 15-8.

Los Altos (22-11) jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the final game and No. 7 South San Francisco (24-10) never recovered.

“We’ve had some trouble closing out matches in three games,” Winn said. “But we have done well in rally scoring.”

Winn credited Allie Miller’s serving and the play of defensive specialists Amanda Burke and Becky Slack for sparking the Eagles in the fifth game.

Lauren Schaefer led the Eagles with 18 kills and five blocks; Ashley Watson contributed 17 kills and 11 digs. Miller added 13 digs.

Los Altos moves on to the semifinals Thursday, facing No. 6 Willow Glen (25-9) at 8 p.m. at Valley Christian High (San Jose).

Lancers roll

The score wasn’t close. but the match was. At least that’s how St. Francis coach Kim Oden described her top-ranked team’s 15-7, 15-1, 15-5 CCS Division I quarterfinal win over St. Ignatius Saturday at Santa Clara High.

“They played unbelievable defense,” Oden said of No. 8 St. Ignatius. “The score doesn’t indicate how well they played. But we played very well, too.”

Ashley Dutro led the Lancers (29-1) with 11 kills. Diane Copenhagen added nine kills and “had a great night passing,” according to Oden.

St. Francis plays a semifinal match vs. No. 4 Piedmont Hills (22-7) at 8 p.m., Thursday, at Santa Clara High.

Gunn disqualified

For Gunn, the playoffs ended before they began. Four days after being seeded third in Division II, the CCS disqualified the Titans for not properly filling out their season summary form.

“It’s surreal,” said Gunn coach Evan Barth, whose team was originally slated to play a CCS quarterfinal match last Saturday. “We can’t appeal and there’s no closure at all — it’s just lingering. I really feel for my players, especially the six seniors who didn’t get a chance to play their last game.”

Barth said the CCS disqualified his Titans for not including the Lynbrook Tournament on the line asking for a list of all the tournaments the team played in. The coach said he omitted the tournament because it used rally scoring — a format in which a point is at stake on every serve — and the CCS does not recognize rally-scoring matches.

“We didn’t count those matches on our record,” Barth said. “We treated (the tournament) like a scrimmage.”

The CCS, however, did not see it that way. In a letter to Gunn principal Scott Lawrence, CCS commissioner Nancy Lazenby Blaser explained: “Gunn’s failure to report the tournament at all, when the form states clearly that all tournaments in which a team participated are to be included on the form, constitutes providing inaccurate or false information. Teams are required to report all tournaments (so) that wins and losses can be fairly evaluated by the CCS Volleyball Committee in their seeding deliberations.”

Six other teams that played in the Lynbrook Tournament also were dropped from the playoffs.