Girls’ Volleyball: Back Bay quartet, North swept aside
The North girls’ volleyball team had but one practice to prepare for the Dave Mohs Memorial Orange County High School All-Star match.
Corona del Mar High senior Katie Craig did not use that as an excuse, but she did point out the fact that the North girls had just a one-hour practice on Wednesday.
Craig and the North girls, who also featured Paige Migliori of CdM and Newport Harbor’s Sammie Yeager and Logan Grove, let the first set get away from them and lost the first two sets of the best-of-three format Friday night at Newport Harbor.
The teams played a third set, but the South won that too, finishing with winning scores of 25-23, 25-23, 15-11. The North led, 23-19, in the first set, but the South rallied for the win with six unanswered points.
Lindsey Ruddins of Aliso Niguel stood out for the South, as the UC Santa Barbara-bound senior earned MVP honors.
“We had our chances for sure in the first set,” said North Coach Steve Astor, the head coach at Corona del Mar. “But it was more [Ruddins] just stepped up.”
The North could do little to stop Ruddins. She also got hot in the second set. Still, the match was filled with talented players.
“It was so fun to watch,” Astor said. “It’s almost hard to coach at times, because you want to watch.”
Astor said it was “cool” to coach the Back Bay girls on the North team. The girls from CdM and Newport Harbor said it was fun to play together and they have been friends through club competition.
Craig did say it was weird to play with Mater Dei players Alyse Ford and Brittany Welch, because the Monarchs had knocked the Sea Kings out of the CIF playoffs the past two seasons.
Yet, overall, Craig was excited to play in the all-star match, calling it an “honor,” to be among such talented players.
“It’s definitely sentimental,” she said of closing out her high school career.
Craig is moving on to Colorado State to play volleyball. Migliori is bound for Pepperdine and Grove is headed to Concordia.
Yeager, who like Craig was honored at the Athletic Awards Dinner Thursday night, says she will attend USC. She plans to play intramural or club volleyball.
The South team was supposed to feature Sage Hill’s trio of Kekai Whitford, Maddy Abbott and Halland McKenna, but they missed the match because of graduation.
Twitter: @SteveVirgen