RANCHO CUCAMONGA — The new format for the CIF Southern Section playoffs left Etiwanda girls volleyball coach Savannah Flores in the dark about scouting potential opponents until the pairings came out last weekend.
Turns out, a lack of early information was not a problem for the Eagles.
Etiwanda never trailed by more than one point in any set and went on to sweep Alemany, 25-17, 25-18, 25-19 in a Division 2 first-round contest at Etiwanda High School.
The third-seeded Eagles (28-2) advance to play at JSerra in the second round Saturday. Etiwanda defeated JSerra on the road in four sets on Aug. 28.
“We definitely won the serve and pass battle,” Etiwanda senior setter Brooke Hansen said. “Our serves were on, our passing was beautiful, it let me run our offense. When we can run our offense proficiently, we’re a pretty good team.”
Hansen had 24 assists, four kills and three aces for the Eagles.
Flores knows about the strength of her team but was still looking at scouting before the brackets came out.
“Even based on what they released on the 17th we were looking at we could play potentially this team, this team or this team,” Flores said. “Started looking at that, it didn’t turn out to be any of them.”
They got Alemany, a program that won the Division 4 section title three years ago, the Division 3 championship two years ago and played in the Division 1 playoffs last season. But the Warriors (18-13) were rebuilding with a young team led by 6-foot-2 senior Rutgers-bound opposite hitter Alanah Clemente, who had a match-high 12 kills.
Etiwanda took control of the first set early, and after scoring the first four points never let Alemany get closer than two points.
The second set was a little tighter and the teams were tied 15-15 before the Eagles scored seven of the next eight points, capped by an ace from Lauren Furnald, and were not threatened the rest of the set.
The third set was similar. The teams were tied 15-15 and another Etiwanda run was capped by a Furnald ace. That ace gave Etiwanda a 20-16 lead, and the Warriors didn’t threaten after that.
What does Flores hope her team gets out of Wednesday’s win?
“The confidence in themselves,” Flores said. “We played in some big matches this year. (But it’s) being able to move past those (bad) points (and say), ‘Hey, you know what? That was a big point for them. Who cares? Let’s get ours.’”
Junior Nina Hemsley led Etiwanda with 11 kills, while Furnald added nine. Alina Parrales and Mya Yaisrael had 11 digs apiece.
Alemany coach Morgan Wijay was disappointed her team’s season ended much earlier than the last three years.
“We were in Division 3 the whole year then the last week we jumped way up,” Wijay said. “We have a fairly young team and they battled. If we would’ve just gotten a few more serves in the court, we could’ve given them (Etiwanda) a little more. I was very impressed with their setter (Hansen), she does a very good job, makes good decisions. I thought they were tough servers who moved the ball around a lot.”
Alemany had 17 serve errors Wednesday, which were too much to overcome despite nine kills from Tristyn Bailey and 25 assists from Valerie Bazylevych.
