SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO — The San Clemente boys volleyball team kicked off South Coast League play with a dominant sweep of San Juan Hills 25-16, 25-14, 25-21 on Thursday at San Juan Hills High.
San Clemente (15-6, 1-0) entered the week ranked No. 1 in the CIF-SS Division 3 poll. San Juan Hills (12-3-1, 0-2) is ranked No. 1 in Division 4.
The Tritons were coming off a solid showing in the Best of the West Tournament last weekend and a win over Canyon on Wednesday.
“I liked the way we took care of business tonight,” San Clemente coach Justin DeBlasio said. “For us to come out after a long week and a tournament, it was nice to play clean volleyball and get out of here with a win.”
San Clemente had its worst season in recent school history in 2023 and finished below second place in the league standings for the first time in over 22 years.
The Tritons are much improved this year and have beaten Orange County Top 10 teams like Newport Harbor, Mater Dei and Beckman.
“Everyone’s a year older and we have good senior leadership,” DeBlasio said. “All our juniors are very well versed and have high volleyball IQ. That makes a major difference and the culture is set.”
“We are definitely more focused this year,” said Tritons senior libero Kai Schmitt, who has signed with Stanford. “We are really locked in because we definitely know we are capable of doing a lot more.”
San Clemente’s blocking unit was effective and made it difficult for San Juan Hills to find holes in the defense.
Jetti Presho led the Tritons with four blocks and the duo of Cayden McCinnes and Luke Wagner were also solid at the net.
“That’s something we focused on,” DeBlasio said. “We’ve played a lot of high-level matches, so I didn’t want tonight to be a letdown. I really challenged them to get better at the little things right now and blocking was one of the things we focused on.”
San Clemente’s offense shined too with clean passing and multiple hitters getting good opportunities. Junior outside hitter Marcus Kosolchaeron, who is 6-foot-6, led the Tritons with seven kills.
Schmitt and Jack Loper each had five kills. Senior middle Will Whedden also had an effective day with multiple kills.
“Out of the gate we started passing really well,” Schmitt said. “We were in system the whole game and when we are in system and all our options are firing, we are a hard team to beat.”
San Clemente cruised through the first set 25-16 and Schmitt had a kill to end the second set 25-14.
The Stallions rallied a bit in the third set and even led by three points at one point.
San Clemente went on a run to retake the lead and an ace by libero Colten Hatfield ended the match.
Drew Presser had four aces for San Juan Hills. Presser, Andrei Hunt and Davin Altheide led the Stallions’ offensive effort.
Finn Johansson had an ace for San Clemente as did Kosolchaeron, Wagner and Hatfield.
San Clemente will host Tesoro in a league match Wednesday, March 20. The Tritons beat Tesoro 2-0 in the Tesoro Varsity Tournament earlier this season.
San Juan Hills will travel to play at Bishop Diego of Santa Barbara Friday.
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