SACRAMENTO – Top-seeded Ripon won the first two sets Saturday in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division III girls volleyball championship tilt against No. 2 Nevada Union only for the Miners to come back and force a fifth set. Ripon found itself two points away from the fifth-set win when Nevada Union closed it out with five straight points to claim the blue banner 22-25, 16-25, 25-18, 25-21, 15-12 at Cosumnes River College’s Clark Gym.
“We came out and we played well,” Ripon coach Greg Soliz said. “The girls were ready to play.
“And then in that fifth set, we had a two-point lead at the end, and again it just came down to the little things — a hitting error and serve-receive and that was it.”
In the third set with Ripon (27-5) trailing 5-7, the Miners (36-14) faulted on three of their next four serves, but Ripon could only close the gap from two points to one. Nevada Union never trailed the rest of the set.
“This game is about momentum, and I think that third set is when we let them back in by missing serves and our passing kind of went,” Soliz said. “They gave us our chance, because they missed serves, we missed serves, they missed serves and the bad part about it is we didn’t take advantage of it.
“We missed serves right after them. We kept them in the game and all it was was just a little play here and there and once that happened the momentum just carried.”
Ashlyn Malone led the Ripon charge with 21 digs, 18 kills a block and an ace. Jorie Eskes (16 kills, 14 digs, three blocks, two aces), Kennedy Everhart (32 digs, five aces, two assists), Alayna Sprinkle (41 assists, 10 digs, four aces, kill), Kya Cardoso (11 digs) and Lilia Tuputala (nine kills, block) rounded out the Ripon attack.
Ashley Thompson paced Nevada Union with 22 kills – three in the final set – and two aces while CharleyAnn Eelkema added 15 kills.
It turns out Miners coach Brad Keethe has history with Ripon.
“I was my dad’s assistant coach at Ripon,” Keethe said. “The last time I won a section title was with Ripon in 2010 I believe.”
These two teams met in September at the High Sierra tournament in Reno with Ripon winning 2-1.
“We knew this was going to be a tough fight,” Keethe said. “We played them before and this was just two really good teams. We had some really good practices coming up to this, and they just played their heart out.”
Both teams are playing in the NorCal Division III Regional starting on Tuesday.
