Portola seniors include from left, front row Jane Park, Ella Ng, Lauren Hoang and Lulu Alawad and top row Alison Cai, Anny Ji, Zeynep Arcan and Camilla King. (PHOTOS: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).
Portola’s girls volleyball team had plenty of support at home Saturday morning for the CIF Division 4 semifinal against Vista Murrieta.
The home fans cheered on the top-seeded Bulldogs as they jumped out to a one-set lead but fourth-seeded Vista Murrieta came back to win the next three sets to advance into the finals next weekend against Glendora.
It was the first time that Portola has advanced into the semifinal round. By virtue of reaching the semifinals, the Bulldogs will still advance into the CIF State Tournament which comes after the section finals.
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Portola (18-10) advanced to the CIF playoffs for only the third time in the history of the program.
Much to the delight of the home fans, some dressed in Halloween costumes, Portola won the first set 25-20, but Vista Murrieta won the next three 25-22, 25-18, 25-23.
Portola, sparked by the play of Rebecca Jeanty, who notched some key points, led by two points late in the set hoping to push the match to a fifth set before Vista Murrieta won the match on a kill by Kaylin Sun.
Alexa Sanders had two big aces for Vista Murrieta (17-16) to help swing the momentum.
“We ultimately couldn’t defend well enough against their outsides, you have to give the other team credit,” said Portola Coach Heidi Martasian. “They ended up serving a little tougher against us which challenged our passing.
“Their outsides deserve a lot of credit for getting a few kills on us. But I thought our girls still battled in spite of it. We’ve always been a bit of an undersized team so we knew one day we would come up against somebody with maybe a little more height and a little bit more power and today was it. So we kind of felt coming in here today we felt that whoever won this one will probably win the finals.”
Besides Jeanty, Martasian was pleased with the play of senior setter Jane Park, who has been on the team for four years.
“She has really been such an anchor for this team, she moves the ball around really well with her decision making and my libero, Camilla King, had to come out for a little bit in the third, she got a few digs there early on and has been solid in our passing game.”
Senior Zeynep Arcan also played well.
“They couldn’t stop her,” Martasian said. “We tried to get the ball to her, she was very effective as well. Ella Ng’s serving really put us into a good spot.”
Park was disappointed in the outcome of Saturday’s match.
“I feel like we definitely could have competed a bit more,” Park said. “But I feel like mentality, we were just on ourselves especially as we started to miss balls out and some balls into the net and even when we were serving we served it out, we started building that tension. Because the score is so close and we’re trying our best to keep that distance and that score, but we were just always so on ourselves.”
Park said the team has great chemistry.
“The key was how close we were together, even off the court, and I feel that because of that we were able to trust each other a bit more,” she said. “And I feel like that’s why we made it this far, compared to any other year and also I feel like individually we were also really strong and when you put that together we’re awesome.
“We finally got our first chance to go into state and I feel like that’s also pretty exciting too.”
Martasisan was cheered on by her father, former long-time University cross country and track coach Dan Wroblicky who has retired from teaching but still helps out the Uni program when he’s not spending time with his grand-children and traveling.
Martasian indicated she’s looking forward to the state tournament.
“I’m very proud of this group, they’ve always been competitiors and had some good fight and every year we’ve gone to CIF, we’ve done a little bit better with this group,” she said. “It’s great to get to the semifinals and we do get a bid to the state tournament, which is great, so it doesn’t have to be the end.”
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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