Winning no small chore

When four years of high school volleyball boil down to no more than a handful of matches, the ramifications of winning and losing represent consequences more than stakes.

And in the win-or-go-home format of the CIF State girls’ playoffs, as with any “big” match, Newport Harbor High Coach Dan Glenn said he has come to count on senior Katey Thompson being at her best.

Maybe that’s because the 6-foot-1 middle blocker is used to her actions on the court having consequences — determining things more tangible than the right to be forever called a champion.

“We always played volleyball in the backyard,” Thompson said of she and her four sisters, her father and mother, who would choose up sides on the regulation net that divided a patch of well-worn grass at their Newport Beach home.

“And it would get pretty fierce, because we would play for chores.”

Bragging rights and other spoils of victory are nice, you see. But Thompson grew to covet the thrill of victory because it meant not having to clean the kitchen.

“Cleaning the kitchen after dinner was probably the worst job,” she said. “Or maybe laundry. Nobody likes to do laundry.”

With Thompson helping lead the way, the Sailors (30-6) have cleaned up this season. They shared the Sunset League title with Los Alamitos, then topped the Griffins, 27-29, 25-19, 25-23, 25-20, to win the CIF Southern Section Division I-AA crown on Nov. 21.

The Tars play host to Huntington Beach tonight at 7 for the right to advance to Tuesday’s Southern California Division I Regional final, from which the winner will advance to the CIF State Division I title match Dec. 5 at UC Irvine.

Thompson had 12 kills, three aces and three blocks in Saturday’s triumph at Cypress College, helping Harbor collect its first section crown since 2002.

“It was just amazing,” Thompson said of the third match against the Griffins, whom the Sailors have now defeated twice. “It’s what we’ve been working for since our freshman year. We six seniors were super excited.”

Glenn assessed Thompson’s play Saturday as fantastic, though he was hardly surprised.

“The special thing about her the last three [varsity seasons] is that the bigger the match, the better she seems to play,” Glenn said. “And she certainly showed that [against Los Al].”

Thompson, the Daily Pilot Athlete of the Week, has signed to play collegiately at UC Santa Barbara. She is also desirous of a career on the Assn. of Volleyball Professional beach tour.

But if she now appears destined for continued stardom, that was not always the case.

“I tried out for the seventh-grade team at Ensign [Intermediate] and I got cut,” she said. “I wasn’t too good.”

Yet Thompson, who also played basketball her first three years at Newport Harbor, said the disappointment of being discarded in her first foray into the sport, did nothing to dissuade her.

“All the girls had already been playing club and I had never played volleyball before,” Thompson said of her initial stumble. “[Being cut] was devastating, but it kind of lit a fire under me.”

Thompson immediately joined the Orange County Volleyball Club, where she quickly caught and passed most of her peers. Part of that development, she said, came in her backyard.

My dad [John, who played water polo at USC] is 6-3 and he likes blocking against me,” Thompson said. “And he is the referee, so he usually calls things his way. Tearing up the net is not against the rules, unless when [dad’s opponents] do it.”

Older sister Kelly and younger sisters Kasey, Torey and Tristen are also regular participants in the family volleyball battles. Kasey, a sophomore middle and opposite was called up from the junior varsity late in the regular season and Torey, a freshman setter, was added for the playoffs.

Tristen, Torey’s twin, played on the junior varsity.

“Even mom [Garnet] gets into the games,” Katey Thompson said. “She’s the server.”

Thompson served up eight kills in a regional-opening sweep at Granada Hills Tuesday.

“Katey gives all our other players confidence, because of how confident she is,” Glenn said. “She really believes in herself and has high expectations. She expects to block every ball, which is half the battle when it comes to being a great middle blocker. And when she is attacking, she expects to get kills.”

And she never expects to have to clean the kitchen.