Playoff Victories Tonight Would Be Semisweet

Harvard-Westlake High has a score to settle. Campbell Hall must find the missing piece of a puzzle.

Both teams will be successful only if they win tonight in semifinal matches in the Southern Section boys’ volleyball playoffs.

Harvard-Westlake (18-1), which plays Mira Costa (20-0) in a Division I match at 7 p.m. at Redondo High, is seeking to avenge a 12-15, 16-14, 16-14, 15-7 loss to the Mustangs in the final match of the regular season.

Campbell Hall (17-1) plays Bishop Montgomery (15-0) at 7 p.m. at Harvard-Westlake in a Division III semifinal.

Harvard-Westlake nearly upset top-ranked Mira Costa earlier this month and only realized how close it was by looking at a videotape of the match.

“We were amazed,” said Harvard-Westlake’s Rick Rauth, a swing hitter who had 25 kills in the match.

The rematch, Rauth said, is “a win-win situation. Coming in as an underdog is good . . . the only place you can go is up.”

Mira Costa has swept through Ocean League play and three playoff matches.

Adam Naeve, a UCLA-bound 6-foot-10 outside hitter, and Kevin Collins, a 6-5 middle blocker who will play for UC Santa Barbara, are Mira Costa’s top players. Naeve had 31 kills and Collins had 22 when the teams met May 3 at Mira Costa.

Harvard-Westlake stayed close because of Rauth, Trevor Julian (25 kills) and a strong passing game.

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The Wolverines have advanced further in the Division I playoffs than any boys’ volleyball team in school history.

“The program is probably at its strongest ever,” said Jess Quiroz, Harvard-Westlake’s fifth-year coach. “It seems like everything has fallen into place.”

Quiroz guided the school’s girls’ volleyball team to the Southern Section Division II championship and the State Division III title last fall.

“It’s nice to have someone there who knows what it’s going to take,” setter Jason Morrow said.

Campbell Hall Coach Tim Jensen earlier this year made his players work together for three days on a 1,000-piece puzzle of safari animals. When they thought they were done, they found one piece was missing.

“You can imagine all the symbolic things we thought of,” Campbell Hall standout Dylan Herrick said.

“We’ll take the puzzle with us the day we go to the finals. But we’ve got to win [tonight].”

Indeed. Like the puzzle, Campbell Hall’s season isn’t quite complete.