Posted on 12 November 2014 by La Habra Journal
By Sarah Fenton
La Habra Journal
The La Habra girl’s volleyball team swept Oak Hills in the first round of CIF playoffs at home Tuesday night.
“I’m so proud of them, and to be able to take them in three and come back from a deficit in game three, they did what they needed to do,” coach Spear said. “I can count on these kids to always fight.”
The Highlanders’ sweep over the Bulldogs (25-19, 25-19, 25-22) advances them to the second round of playoffs where they will face Palm Springs on Thursday.
“As a whole we wanted to make sure we got to the second round of playoffs,” said La Habra head coach Adrianne Spear. “They were pumped since this morning and they came in and they did what they needed to do.”
Alexis Kolschefski led the Highlanders with a match-high 13 kills and eight blocks and Ryana Murch followed with eight kills.
“Coach Adrianne always says we’re like a machine, everybody has to be working as hard as the next person so that’s what was going through our heads,” said Kolschefski. “We play for the person next to us and we’re all a family. We don’t want to let anybody down.”
The start of the first set was back and forth with scoring until the Highlanders went on an 8-0 run to give them a five-point lead over Oak Hills, 20-15.
The Bulldogs (15-12) tried to get the points back before the end of the set, but La Habra’s defense kept them from taking the lead.
The momentum carried over into the second set for the Highlanders.
“In the second set I was thinking, here’s that machine, that well-oiled machine and they stayed on that track for a long time,” coach Spear said. “They were able to fix the small mistakes that they made and that’s what this team is good at doing.”
La Habra took an early lead at the start of the second set, but Oak Hills came back with a 5-0 run to give them a two point lead over the Highlanders, 10-8.
The Highlanders quickly retaliated with their own 5-0 run to regain the lead 14-11.
Both teams went back and forth with scoring until the Highlanders went on another 5-0 run to take the set, 25-19.
“We went into the third game knowing that we weren’t going to take it easily,” coach Spear said. “Our passing broke down a little bit but we were able to recover and go from there.”
Oak Hills was first to put points on the board in the third set and stayed in the lead for the majority of the set until the highlanders until the Highlanders went on a 4-0 run at the end of the set to give them a two point lead.
La Habra used that momentum to finish the set and secure the sweep over the Bulldogs.
“We’re going to work on some out of system plays before the next game, but I also want them to rest,” coach Spear said.