AG's Glass a real pain to San Marcos

Friday night followed a season-long pattern for Arroyo Grande's boys volleyball team.

Most everything flowed through a Glass. Senior Michael Glass, that is.

“He's an amazing setter,” teammate Logan Wais said of Glass after Glass amassed his usual amazing stats. Glass, distributing the ball high, low (on quick sets), back and sideways with equal aplomb, racked up 35 assists as Arroyo Grande defeated San Marcos 25-23, 27-25, 18-25, 25-21 at Arroyo Grande's Arthur James Gymnasium in the first round of the CIF Southern Section Division II Playoffs.

Glass said, “We wanted to mix it up - go outside, deep, down the middle. We were able to do that, and (our hitters) did a really good job of putting the ball away.”

The PAC-7 League champions (10-0 league matches, 14-1 overall) play Claremont at 7 p.m. next Tuesday in the second round. A coin flip will decide the match site. The Wolfpack swept Santa Ana Saddleback, the third seed from the Golden West League, 25-19, 25-21, 25-18.

Arroyo Grande edged to a 22-19 lead the fourth game. Kenny Hitchen made it 23-19 with a stuff block, then Wais brought to the Eagles to match point with a kill.

The Royals staved off two match points, but then a match that had been pretty well-played finished with a mistake. Michael York served the ball into the net.

San Marcos was the third seed from the Channel League. The match was likely the last for long-time Royals coach Jon Lee. Before the match, the public address announcer told the crowd Lee was stepping down after this season.

Wais said, “We've never gotten past the quarterfinals. Our goal this year is to make the semis, maybe even the final.”

If they get that far, the Eagles will likely face top-ranked Valencia in the quarterfinals. As for Friday night, they did plenty of things well. Trevor Salas and Kenny Kleinsmith had 10 kills each. Chad McDade had nine. Wais made seven.

Salas made some timely blocks. Glass threw in a highlight reel-caliber kill himself, catching the Royals cold - they were expecting him to set - on a no-look shot for a game one point.

Besides, “We got awesome back row defense from our liberos, Brett Safarik and Brett Castillo,” said Arroyo Grande coach Laurel Allen.

All that was enough for the Eagles to overcome the Grimes factor.

Sometimes Andrew Grimes would smash lasers from a front-row position. Sometimes he would rush up from the back row to do it. However he did it, the Royal wound up with a whopping 24 kills.

“Other than going to weekend tournaments out of town, and seeing some amazing teams, he's one of the best we've played against,” said Wais.

Allen said, “We knew he was their go-to guy.” York had nine kills himself.

Two well-matched teams with good liberos, Safarik and Castillo for Arroyo Grande, Danny Nguyen for San Marcos, went at it Friday night. The Eagles won the first two games because they were more steady at the end of both.

The Royals rode Grimes' hitting as they rallied briefly the first game after trailing 23-19. York's ace brought San Marcos within 23-22, but then the Royals couldn't recover from a bad pass.

Grimes wiped out game point with a kill, but Hitchen ended the game when he lofted a shot beyond the Royals' back row and inside the back line by three feet.

Glass set the ball and Wais smashed it for a kill to give the Eagles a 26-25 lead in game two, a game in which neither squad led by more than three points. Off a sweet set from Glass, Kleinsmith smashed a ball that handcuffed Nguyen - he hit it beyond his own baseline - for the last point.

The Eagles' play slipped the third game, “As you might expect after beating a team twice,” said Wais. “The last game, we picked it up.”

That, the Eagles did. They shored up their defense and went ahead 12-7 on a three-point Salas serving run. The Eagles stayed ahead from then on.

CIF Swimming

Division III Preliminaries

LONG BEACH - Pioneer Valley swimmers Shyla Motley and and Zach Toomay swam lifetime bests at the CIF Southern Section Division III Preliminaries at the Belmont Plaza Pool as they qualified for the finals.

Motley, a junior, swam 1:08.25 in the girls 100-yard breaststroke. She is seeded second, .53 behind the top seed.

Toomay, a freshman, qualified sixth in the 200 individual medley (2:01.71) and 13th in the 100 breaststroke (1:03.95). He will be in the “A” final in the medley and in the consolation final in the breaststroke.

All of the above times are personal bests.

Division IV Finals

LONG BEACH - Santa Maria's girls finished 11th out of 44 teams at the Belmont Plaza Pool on Thursday.

Paty Vogel finished fifth in 1:11.37 in the 100-yard breaststroke and eighth in 26.14 in the 50 freestyle. Karen Hollinshead had a pair of ninth-place finishes, in the 200 individual medley (2:19.12) and the 100 backstroke (1:03.58, a personal best).

Lanessa Horton-Scott was 12th (58.01) in the 100 freestyle. The Saints' 200 medley relay foursome of Hollinshead, Vogel, Courtney Hodge and Horton-Scott placed seventh in 2:00.87. The same quartet was 12th in 3:58.96 in the 400 freestyle relay.

On the boys side, Santa Maria's Martin Eged finished 10th in 22.45 in the 50 freestyle. Santa Maria's boys finished 40th out of 47 teams.

May 10, 2008