Sea Kings swept away by Wildcats

CYPRESS — A two-game deficit didn’t seem so much like an incredible challenge to overcome for the Corona del Mar High girls’ volleyball team just this past Tuesday.

But this was Saturday at Cypress College against top-seeded Redlands East Valley. This time the hole proved too deep to climb out of, as the Wildcats captured its second straight CIF Southern Section Division II-AA title with a 25-16, 25-20, 25-14 victory.

The Sea Kings (21-8) appeared as if they could make a match of it, late in the second game. They trailed, 18-17, before the Wildcats (24-1) scored five straight points to regain control. Redlands East Valley jumped out to a 7-2 lead in third game, showing that the match and the CIF championship plaque belonged at its school.

“I knew they were going to be good,” CdM first-year coach Darryl Gan said of the Wildcats. “They’re filled with a bunch of club players that play hard. Offensively they were really, really good. They passed well, served us tough and put us in positions where we had to struggle a bit on our serve-receive. Against a team like that you need to block well. If you don’t block well against a team like that you’re going to get in trouble.”

Krista Vansant, a 6-foot-2 sophomore, and 6-4 senior Victoria Brummett certainly made the match tough for the Sea Kings. Vansant recorded a match-high 11 kills and Brummett added nine kills and five blocks.

“We could’ve done maybe a couple things better, but that is a good team on that side,” Gan said. “I don’t think there is really one thing that we could’ve done that would’ve changed the whole match.”

During moments of the match, Redlands East Valley dominated CdM at the net. That’s a reason why the Wildcats built big leads when it appeared a game was tight.

“At times we dominated,” said Redlands East Valley Coach Trish Vansant, Krista’s mother. “But I don’t think we felt we were ever in complete control.”

Coach Vansant said her team entered the match confident about its play, but not because of its opponent.

“We weren’t confident because of [CdM’s] history and tradition,” she said.

CdM was seeking its first title since 2004 and the program’s eighth championship. The Sea Kings lost in the finals two years ago and the semifinals last year. They appeared as if they were getting hot at the right time this season, winning the Pacific Coast League title and making a strong run in the CIF playoffs, that included a five-game semifinal win at Beckman.

“We are a really young team,” junior setter Madie Smith said of CdM, which has three seniors (In contrast, the Wildcats had seven). “I couldn’t have asked for a better season. We won league, we made it [to the CIF title match] and we’ll play in the state tournament.”

Smith led CdM with 29 assists and eight digs. Junior outside hitter Sydney Brombal was the Sea Kings’ kill leader with eight. She also had eight digs. Junior Amanda Nickel finished with seven kills, one ace and one block and senior middle blocker Conley Kipp had six kills. Sophomore libero Catherine Sullivan led CdM in digs with 13.

The CIF state tournament pairings will be posted Sunday at www.cifstate.org no later than 5 p.m.