SANTA ANA — The Mater Dei girls volleyball team had nothing on the line heading into its third and final pool-play match against Huntington Beach in the CIF-SS Division 1 playoffs Saturday at Mater Dei High School.
The Monarchs, who are ranked No. 1 in the state, had already secured a spot in the finals, but there was no letup in their sweep of the Oilers, 25-15, 25-16, 25-16.
Mater Dei (34-4) went 3-0 in Pool B, dropping just one set in those matches, and earned a showdown with No. 1 seed Sierra Canyon in the championship game Saturday, Nov. 9, at Cerritos College.
The Monarchs are the defending CIF-SS Division 1 champions.
Sierra Canyon lost to Mira Costa in five sets Saturday night but wound up as the Pool A champion because of a tiebreaker.
The Oilers (30-7), who went 0-3 in pool play, are ranked No. 9 in the state and qualified for the CIF State playoffs that begin Nov. 12.
Mater Dei coach Dan O’Dell made sure he got all 20 players on his roster some playing time against the Oilers.
“We were able to approach the match like, hey, let’s keep trying to get better, but also let’s honor some seniors,” he said. “Let’s get kids in and rotate stuff up a little bit.”
The Monarchs opened pool play with a 3-0 sweep of Los Alamitos followed by a 3-1 victory over Redondo.
“I think we’ve slowly been getting better during the tournament,” O’Dell said. “I felt like I’m slowly starting to to see our team play like we’re supposed to play so I think we were on that trajectory.”
Sophomore outside hitter Westley Matavavo and Layli Ostovar led the Monarchs will eight kills each.
Matavavo, who transferred to Mater Dei after playing her freshman season at Orange Lutheran, also had two blocks and served two aces.
Addison Williams and Taylor Ponchak led the Oilers with six kills and five kills, respectively.
“First of all, we’ve got to get it right mentally,” Huntington Beach coach Craig Pazanti said. “We lost three in a row here in CIF. I don’t think we’ve been on a three-match losing streak the whole season. So now it’s regroup physically, it’s regroup mentally. Get back in the gym and figure out what we need to do to be better.”
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