CHATSWORTH – After having CIF-SS Div. 1 Pool B opener postponed due to a leaking roof in the gym, the Sierra Canyon School girls volleyball team was ready to play when it finally squared off against Marymount on Friday.
The Trailblazers, who are the top seed in their bracket and the second seed overall in the Div. 1 playoff, defeated the visiting Sailors (22-11) in straight sets, 25-23, 25-9, 25-22. Marymount (22-11) fell to Sierra Canyon (30-1) twice in the regular season, but was the only Mission League team to beat them in multiple sets this season.
“After the kind of weird, wild week we’ve had in terms of rescheduling the game and how we prepared to play and then having to shut it down and reset again, it made me nervous,” Sierra Canyon coach Stefanie Wigfall said. “We’ve already played them twice and it’s tough to keep beating talented teams. I’m glad that’s behind us because it’s always a tough game against Marymount.”
Sierra Canyon continues pool play with home games against Los Alamitos on Oct. 27 and Mira Costa on Oct. 31.
“It’s always a good game with Marymount,” Sierra Canyon captain Hanna McGinest said. “It was very important that we handled them today. We’ve always been with them and I feel like a game like this prepares us for what’s going to happen for the next few games.”
McGinest, a Texas commit, recorded the game’s late kill in the third set. She tied her with Tennessee teammate Eva Jeffries with eight kills.
University of Southern California senior McKenna McIntosh and Nebraska-bound Kendall Omoruyi both had six kills in the win.
“I’ve been on the other side of that as a coach and it can be crazy because you can’t stop everybody,” Wigfall said. “If you try to stop everybody, you end up not stopping anybody, so you really have to make some tough decisions and you have to go through with those decisions. They did a really good job of slowing down Hanna. You have to do that. And I think our job is to figure out very quickly what they’re trying to do and counter that.”
Sierra Canyon also got strong performances from Raneighla Gonzalez, who recorded six blocks, and Blake Gurney who joined Omoruyi with four aces from the service line.
“We all know our roles and positions,” McGinest said. “We believe we’re all very good players. If one of us needs to make a play, we trust him to handle it.”
