Frontier outlasts Garces in five games for Division II volleyball crown
| Thursday, Nov 19 2009 11:19 PM
Last Updated Monday, Nov 23 2009 04:01 PM
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Rod Thornburg / Special to The Californian (L-R): Frontier's Morgan Dake, Colby Joseph, Kelsey Fien, Taylor Jackson and Krista Rymer celebrate their title Thursday at Frontier High.
Four years ago, with a bunch of athletes who didn't look like much of a volleyball team, Frontier coach Steve Bentley told his players to believe.
So when the Titans found themselves four points away from defeat with four points to make up in Game 4 in Thursday's Division II Central Section final, he knew just what to say.
Don't stop believin'.
Frontier stormed back to win Game 4 and then dominated Game 5 to beat Garces 25-27, 25-18, 10-25, 25-21, 15-8 in a championship-caliber thriller at Frontier.
"When it comes to adversity, we tend to do pretty well," Bentley said. "Garces was playing incredible, and we just kept that belief in each other."
After the teams split the first two games, Garces (26-10) rolled to a Game 3 victory and then slowly took control of the fourth game until it led 21-17. Then came perhaps the match's key points.
With their defense finally able to corral the hefty spikes from Garces' Melanie Reis and Caitlin Bernardin, the Titans (30-9) got kills from Cailee Luter and Krista Rymer, an ace from Colby Joseph and two more kills from Kelsey Fien to make that four-point deficit a one-point lead.
"You just have to keep your cool," said libero Joseph, who made a whopping 48 digs. "We never thought about losing."
They didn't have to in the deciding game, in which they trailed only twice, the last time at 3-2.
Kills from Rymer and Fien and a succession of Rams errors led to a 7-1 lead that essentially won the championship.
Guess what helped?
"The confidence grew at the end of Game 4, and in the timeout (between games), the kids just kind of looked at each other and said, 'We believe,'" Bentley said.
Fien had 11 kills to lead Frontier, Rymer had 10 kills and 23 digs and Morgan Dake had nine kills. Samantha Whittington made 39 assists and 18 digs.
That kind of a performance was a far cry from 2005, when Frontier was a junior varsity-only program with only sophomores and freshmen -- who are seniors today.
"When I started, we worked really hard, but we didn't really put together our talent," said Joseph, who's a junior. "We worked so hard the past three years to get here. It feels so good."
Joseph's defensive performance, along with some tactical adjustments on the back line, helped to slow Garces' big hitters. Bernardin still had 21 kills and 20 digs and Reis had 20 kills, but the Rams came up just short of their third straight section title.
"The match ran so much on emotion," Garces coach Kim Harper said. "When we felt good, we played great. When Frontier felt good, they played great. At times, I thought both of us were playing the best we had all year. It just didn't go our way."
Morgan Frazier made 54 assists, Kimber Gutierrez had 40 digs and Amanda Aguilar had seven blocks, but the Rams couldn't recover after they let the Game 4 lead slip away.
"There were definitely some times where we stalled a little bit," Harper said. "We were revving the engine but not going anywhere."
It's the Titans who are going to the state tournament. Their bracket will be released this weekend.
"We're excited; the journey continues," Bentley said. "But this is what we set out to do. We wanted to be division champions, and without that we weren't going to be satisfied."
And you had better believe that.
