Dailey stepping up for Sage

Before playing in the biggest match of the season so far, Sage Hill School girls’ volleyball player Jamie Dailey received a surprise.

Lightning Coach Dan Thomassen asked Dailey to step out from a team meeting prior to Sage’s Academy League showdown with St. Margaret’s at home on Oct. 16.

Dailey was surprised to see her older sister, Cat, and cousin, Kristen, waiting outside.

Cat Dailey, who graduated from Sage Hill in 2006, was one of the architects of the Lightning volleyball program in the early years. She was a member of the program’s first CIF title team in 2005, when she was an outside hitter on the team that captured the Division IV-A crown.

It is not surprising that Cat, who went on to play at Cal and Yale, would come back to support Sage volleyball and her little sister, who is a junior outside hitter. Well, except for the fact that Cat now lives in Connecticut, where she works for a marketing firm.

“I was very surprised,” Jamie Dailey said. “She decided on Thursday [the day before the match] that she was going to come. My sister had never seen any of our high school matches before, so this was really cool.”

The sisters are more than 10 years apart in age, but there is a new Dailey pounding down kills as an outside hitter for the Lightning. Cat watched Jamie shine, pounding down a team-high 19 kills as the Lightning beat St. Margaret’s, 17-25, 25-23, 25-11, 25-10. Jamie had one more kill than her jersey number, and it was big for the Lightning.

St. Margaret’s, which beat Sage Hill in five sets earlier this season, came into the match ranked No. 4 in Division 3AA, with Sage at No. 4. Now the Lightning have moved up to No. 2, with the Tartans at No. 3. Going into the last two weeks of the regular season, it appears likely that the rivals will share the Academy League title, though Sage Hill still has two matches left against tough Crean Lutheran.

Then the postseason will come. Jamie Dailey, the Daily Pilot Athlete of the Week who is in her third year on varsity, is going to do her best to win her third CIF title with the Lightning. She was on varsity as a freshman, though she received little playing time. Last season, she played middle blocker for the first time and started, earning second-team all-league honors. Sage Hill repeated as Division 3AA champion, knocking off — who else? — St. Margaret’s in the title match.

Being Cat’s younger sister could create expectations for Jamie. So could stepping into the shoes of the two outside hitters the Lightning lost to graduation, Kekai Whitford (Loyola Marymount) and Halland McKenna (Stanford). The two combined with classmate and setter Maddy Abbott (Michigan) to have staggering high school careers, winning three CIF titles in four seasons and advancing Sage to the CIF State Southern California Regional Division III finals each of the last two years.

Like Cat Dailey in 2005, Whitford was the Newport-Mesa Dream Team Player of the Year last season. And McKenna is the Lightning’s all-time kills leader, with 1,552 of them.

Now it’s Jamie who has again moved into a spot, outside hitter, that she hasn’t played much before. She’s getting set by sophomore Jade Blevins, who started at opposite last year.

The team makeup is definitely much different. Sage Hill also has two freshman regulars in middle blocker Sydnee Francis and Amiyah De’Long. Yet, the Lightning continue to gel.

“I think going into the season, a lot of people thought we weren’t going to be very good,” said Dailey, a team captain along with senior libero Lina Aluzri and senior Giordana Ricci. “People were always asking, ‘Are you guys good this year?’ I don’t know how to respond to that. It’s kind of an awkward question. But because we did so well last year, I think the whole team has something to prove. We want to prove that we can be just as good as last year’s team. We obviously really miss all of the players from last year, but we can still play at a high level without them on the court. A lot of people have stepped up this year.”

Count Jamie Dailey as one of those. Thomassen certainly does. She leads the team in kills, and her strong effort against St. Margaret’s the second time around was the norm, not the exception.

“It was right in line with how she’s been playing,” Thomassen said. “She’s gotten to a point where her pretty good match is still a very, very impressive match. But she has the ability to take over some matches as well. I think she and Jade, our primary setter, their chemistry is getting better and better. Jade sets her front row, back row, middle, right side, so all over the court. But the fact that our other hitters are also getting better means Jade has a lot of a choices.”

Thomassen said he sees rapid improvement from Dailey, who would like to play volleyball in college. She has also been instrumental in helping to develop Sage Hill’s sand volleyball program, which got more serious last spring.

“Sand volleyball has helped me become a better indoor player,” Jamie Dailey said. “Plus, it’s really fun. Even if you lose, you’re still at the beach.”

Like her older sister, Jamie was a bit of late bloomer in volleyball. Their father, Ed, encouraged his girls to play many sports growing up. Jamie didn’t start club volleyball until the eighth grade with Laguna Beach Volleyball Club, where she still plays.

She’s well-rounded and also values academics, as she’s in Advanced Placement classes in Calculus AB, Economics and Spanish. Plus, Dailey is the lifestyle editor for the Sage Hill school newspaper, “The Bolt,” and also helps out with the yearbook.

“It’s really fun,” she said. “I’m usually interviewing other people, so this is kind of weird.”

If Dailey keeps performing this way, she’ll get used to being the interviewee even more often. Cat, who led Sage to its first CIF title in girls’ volleyball, can feel proud as Jamie pursues the program’s fifth.

To Thomassen, “rebuilding” was never in his vocabulary with talented players like Jamie Dailey in the mix.

“I’ve been fighting that notion all year, because I can see what this team is capable of,” he said. “I turned on the TV and I see Halland playing [Wednesday] night, and they beat Washington in five [sets]. I’m like, ‘That’s a pretty darn good player starting for Stanford that’s not on our team this year.’ Sure, that has an effect, but with the new players on the team and how much these girls have grown from last year, plus being ranked No. 2 in CIF, I think we’re right there just like any other year.”

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Jamie Dailey

Born: Dec. 22, 1998

Hometown: Newport Beach

Height: 6-foot

Sport: Volleyball

Year: Junior

Coach: Dan Thomassen

Favorite food: Strawberries

Favorite movie: “Elf”

Favorite athletic moment: Helping Sage Hill win the CIF Southern Section Division 3AA title last season..

Week in review: Dailey had a team-high 19 kills as Sage Hill beat rival St. Margaret’s in four sets in a key Academy League match on Oct. 16.