The Sierra High School Timberwolves picked up their fourth consecutive Valley Oak League win Monday night over East Union, putting them in solo third place and within striking distance of undefeated Mountain House. Sierra won a tough first set 25-21 before finishing off the Lancers 25-17, and 25-20 to complete the sweep.
“We started a little slow tonight,” Sierra head coach Danielle Deerinck said. “Coming off of a big tournament last weekend, we might have been a little sluggish, but I was happy with how we responded to the adversity.”
East Union (2-4, 6-12) led at one point in all three sets against Sierra (5-2, 10-5), due in large part to strong play from outside hitters Jacob Padilla (nine kills) and Gabriel Estabillo (eight kills), but miscues from the Lancers prevented them from taking a set and putting pressure on their visitors.
“Tonight, we played like a car missing a spark plug,” East Union head coach Tevani Liotard said. “When we got things going, we would make a mistake to stop our momentum. Credit to Sierra, they played a great game, but we have been better.”
The Lancers came close to taking a 1-0 lead after an Estabillo kill made it 19-15 East Union. Deerinck called a timeout to talk things over with her side.
“It took us a little longer than usual to get going tonight,” Sierra outside hitter Ole Schmidt said. “In that timeout, coach was just reminding us to communicate and work together to turn things around.”
Sierra would turn things around in a big way led by Schmidt (10 kills) and middle blocker Ayden Bryant (nine kills) to win the first set in come from behind fashion. In what would be a theme on the night. Junior setter Toan Do (36 assists) was able to spread the ball around to key the comeback.
“We were really creative passing the ball tonight,” Deerinck said. “Toan did a really good job keeping their defense on its heels and making sure everyone got involved.”
Do had a lot of options throughout the match as four Timberwolves finished the match with at least six kills including a team high 14 from middle blocker Julio Vargas and 10 from outside hitter Thinh Huynh. All four leading scorers for Sierra put points on the board en route to a second set victory.
“Today was about getting the middles involved,” Do said. “We knew that might be where they were a little softer defensively and Julio was huge for us in trying to execute that game plan.”
Sierra was equally as impressive on the defensive side of the net in the match. Bryant came up with four blocks, while junior Christian Mahabadi recorded three blocks of Lancer attempts for the Timberwolves.
“We know they have some guys that can get going,” Deerinck said. “I was really happy with how aggressive we were at the net it was one of the differences in the game for sure.”
East Union found itself with a 13-11 lead in the third set after some strong defensive play themselves at the net by Julian Khoonsrivong (two blocks) but the offensive attack led by Do was again too much for the Lancers as Sierra came from behind for the third set in a row to complete the sweep.
“We’re a much better team than we showed tonight,” Liotard said. “We’ll need to have a short memory and try to repeat some of the good things we did on Wednesday to get this thing back on track.”
East Union will travel to Central Catholic on Wednesday while Sierra will host Manteca looking to pull even for second place in the VOL.
