You don’t want to play against the Dos Pueblos boys volleyball team on its senior night.
For the second straight year, the Chargers knocked off a crosstown rival on the night they celebrate their senior players at Sovine Gym. This year’s victim was Santa Barbara High, which came into the match undefeated in Channel League.
Dos Pueblos played lights-out defense, got big nights from outside hitters Micah Goss and Jan Schmidtchen, received clutch blocking from middles Nick Schultz-Clifford and Noah Grant and capitalized Santa Barbara serving errors to post a 19-25, 25-21, 25-20, 25-23 victory.
It was the Chargers’ first win against the Dons since 2018. The result leaves them at 6-3 in league with one match remaining next week.
Santa Barbara is 8-1 and now tied for first place with San Marcos. They square off for the league title on Tuesday at the Thunderhut.
Goss, who is headed to UC Irvine to continue his volleyball career, said it was special to beat Santa Barbara.
“It feels great; senior night, too, it’s an awesome feeling. We beat SM last year, so we just had to keep the tradition going, beating a crosstown rival on senior night.”
The Santa Barbara blockers got touches on most of Goss’ swings in the first set, but as play continued he started blasting balls off the floor and off defenders for kills. He finished with 12 kills.
He credited an energy surge for the team’s turnaround after the first-set loss.
“When we bring up our energy, it somehow brings up our athleticism too. We hit harder, jump higher, just get more touches (on blocks). And, thankfully, our student section was here and our bench was really loud. Just the energy in the building really helped us out.”
It was also helped DP’s cause that Santa Barbara struggled from the serving line. The Dons committed 25 serving errors in the match, with eight of them coming in the second set and seven in the fourth. DP’s match-winning point came on a serve that went landed outside the end line.
Even with its serving issues, Santa Barbara still had a hard time trying to put the ball away against an inspired DP squad. The Chargers continually made fantastic defensive plays against the potent attack of Raglan Kear (13 kills), Mikey Denver (15 kills), Will Harman (14 kills) and Benicio Duarte (5 kills). Several of the defensive gems were one-handed ups.
“They were scrappy and they made us earn a lot of our points. And, all of a sudden, we just couldn’t capitalize on our opportunities” said Santa Barbara coach Chad Arneson of the Chargers.
He added that Dos Pueblos’ hitters played smarter. “Micah was on fire, but a lot of their players did not make a lot of errors. And that’s the name of the game, unforced errors earned.
“We gotta keep our head up and realize that we still have a chance (to win the league). DP, give them credit, they made it interesting. I know San Marcos is happy right now. We just have to see what we can do in the (Karch Kiraly Tournament of Champions) and keep our head up.”
Santa Barbara took charge in the first set, going on a 6-1 run to open up a 13-7 lead. Harman scored set point on a blast that slammed off a defender and into a ceiling cross-beam.
In the second set, Dos Pueblos evened the score at 15 on a Santa Barbara serving error and took the lead for good when the Dons were whistled for a center-line violation.
Grant, a junior middle, helped stretch the lead to 19-15 with a pair of blocks. He finished the match with team-high six rejections. Goss clinched the set and evened the match at 1-1 with a block and tap-over and a kill off a Santa Barbara blocker.
Goss went on a 5-0 service run in the third set to give DP a 19-16 lead.
The Dons went on a mini-run and pulled to within 22-20. But the Chargers maintained their composure and scored the next three points on a kill from Schultz-Clifford in the middle, a taped-ace serve from Wyatt Silver and a net call against Santa Barbara.
“I think the difference tonight was really that we made our serves in,” said Schmidtchen, who had eight kills. “That’s something that I know the other coach is talking about with their team.”
Schmidtchen said it felt great to have everything come together in the team’s final regular-season home match.
“I think because it’s the last game we really wanted to put everything out on the court. We finally had our starting lineup that we were hoping to have since the beginning of the year. We only had it for two games. We’re happy that now later in the season we’re able to perform well with the lineup that we wanted to have.”
Schultz-Clifford, one of six seniors on the DP roster, put his signature on the victory with two solo blocks in the fourth set. They helped the Chargers take an 18-13 lead.
“Nick getting two of those monster blocks in the same run of him being out there was just huge,” said DP coach Ehren Hug. “You’ve seen that a million times, a play like that only jazzes up everybody even more and it felt like we had it in our grasp and then the big boy (Kear) went back to the service line. That brought me back down to earth.”
The Chargers were leading 24-19 when the UC Santa Barbara-bound Kear found his serving rhythm. The Dons scored on a kill by Harman, a block by Duarte, and ace and a block by Jackson Delong to make it a one-point difference.
After a DP timeout, the next serve fell inches long and the Chargers celebrated a crosstown victory.
“It just shows great resiliency and backbone of these young dudes, and I’m super proud of them,” said Hug.