St. Mary's volleyball escapes five-set battle in CIF State opener
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Earning the top seed is one thing.
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Living up to the expectations that come with it is another.
And on Tuesday, St. Mary's volleyball offered another reminder of why its program has claimed five Northern California championships, 14 Sac-Joaquin Section titles and 32 league championships.
One week after a CIF Sac-Joaquin Section semifinal loss, top-seeded St. Mary's bounced back with a dramatic CIF State Division II first-round victory over No. 16 Cardinal Newman, the North Bay-Oak League's first-place finisher, at Anthony Morelli Gym, 19-25, 25-16, 25-17, 22-25, 15-13.
"We weren't at our best," St. Mary's coach Garren Allala said. "But sometimes you have to find a way to hold on, stick with it and be resilient. You can't blink. Sometimes it's OK to win ugly, and I'm glad we got it out of the way now."
For a St. Mary's team that finished the regular season with 80 consecutive Tri-City Athletic League victories, the fifth set brought a different kind of challenge.
The Rams trailed 11-9 and later 13-12 before pulling out the win.
"I was a little stressed for a while there," senior outside hitter Shea Hardcastle said. "I couldn't breathe for a second. I'm just so happy for us. We pulled through. God's got us."
Through it all, junior libero and UC Santa Barbara commit Rachel Nemee was doing what Allala has come to call her "the backbone" for.
Willing to put her body on the line and do the dirty work, Nemee finished with a career-high 38 digs.
That brought her career total to 1,126, setting a St. Mary's school record.
"I didn't even know until the very end," Nemee said. "I just broke down in tears. I'm so happy. I'm going to put that record so far out of reach. I want to keep it forever, like to the grave. This program has been so special to me, and it wouldn't be possible without the girls beside me."
And those girls had plenty to do with it.
Hardcastle, a Westmont College commit, finished with 22 kills, while junior outside hitter Athena Flynn wasn't far behind with 21.
Then there was Nevaeh Wells, who seemed to play just about every position except libero with 11 kills, 18 digs and 26 assists.
"Our fight's always going to show through defense," Allala said. "We always say, whatever happens, don't lose our identity. We lost our minds a little bit and some of that identity, but we embraced the moment and stayed in it."
'Be their unique selves'
As the first set came to an end, Cardinal Newman coach Daryl Kapis gathered his players with a simple message.
Don't believe now? Start believing.
Across the court, Allala wasn't interested in giving a speech.
He had seen enough to know what went wrong. Missed digs. Overhit spikes. Missed setups for kills. Too many self-inflicted mistakes. For the outside hitters, there was the added challenge of facing double blocks.
Rather than address it himself, Allala stepped aside and let his players work through the adjustments.
"I was just telling them to stay loose and be their unique selves," Nemee said. "We call it being a badass."
While Nemee continued to come up with dig after dig, Hardcastle and Flynn took that message to heart over the next two sets.
Even though they weren't on the court together for much of that stretch, the two seemed to have a little competition going, trading kills whenever their turn came around.
Both recorded at least five kills in each of those two sets, which St. Mary's went on to win.
"They're two different hitters," Allala said. "The whole gym knows where it's going to go, and they kept their composure. They've continued to find other ways to score besides just you know crushing balls all the time."
'We stayed together'
For St. Mary's, the fourth set looked a little too much like the first.
The mistakes returned, Cardinal Newman capitalized, and suddenly, the Rams were headed to a fifth set.
Getting back to their identity, however, wasn't something one player could fix.
It would take all six players.
"It's just the connection and how hard we work in practice," Hardcastle said. "We haven't gone to the state championship in 30 years. The last two years, we've lost in the first round, and it's been a hard time. We want to take it all the way, and we know it requires each and every one of us."
Because as St. Mary's had already shown in the second and third sets, the best way to get its offense going was to start with its defense.
That formula returned, and the contributions came from all over.
Down 5-4, Wells put away a kill.
Tied at 5-5, senior Victoria Keller delivered an ace.
Up 8-7, Wells struck again with another kill.
Down 11-9, senior middle hitter Mary Ustach, who also recorded five blocks, answered with a kill before senior opposite hitter Teairra Kenner delivered another.
Facing a 13-12 deficit, Hardcastle delivered another kill.
That was all she wrote.
"I just really love this group of girls," Nemee said. "It's so special. I've been on this team since I was a freshman, but I've never felt this close or this connected to the team. I really think we can go far."
Wells added, "None of us doubted each other. We stayed together the entire time."
This article originally appeared on The Record: St. Mary's volleyball escapes five-set battle in CIF State opener