The San Juan Hills girls volleyball team beat Santa Margarita for the second time in four days Tuesday.
The latest Stallions win over the Eagles perhaps was more impressive than the previous one.
San Juan Hills defeated the Eagles in the top division of the Dave Mohs Memorial Tournament on Saturday at Edison High.
The Stallions beat Santa Margarita again on Tuesday, a wild five-set triumph, 22-25, 25-21, 29-27, 19-25, 15-9.
The Stallions improved to 9-3. Santa Margarita is 7-4.
Stallions 6-foot-5 sophomore middle blocker Megan Hodges, All-Orange County fourth team last season and this week’s Orange County girls athlete of the week, had a team-high 22 kills with nine digs and eight blocks.
Alexis Link and Brennan Hoppe, both juniors, added 12 kills and nine kills, respectively. San Juan Hills junior libero Lydia Levier had a team-high nine digs.
On Tuesday, Santa Margarita was able to put 6-foot-4 junior outside hitter Ireland Real on the court. Real, All-Orange County first team last season and a member of the USA Volleyball 19U National Team, returned to action after being sidelined because of knee tendinitis.
That made Tuesday’s win especially satisfying for San Juan Hills coach Cassie Strickland, a first-year head coach at the school after serving as its junior varsity coach and as a varsity assistant last year.
“Ireland is a stud,” Strickland said. “She’s the top recruit in her class, for sure.”
The battles at the net led by Hodges and Real were entertaining.
Santa Margarita led throughout the first to take the 25-22 win. The second set was tied 16-16 when Hodges delivered a kill and an ace to propel the Stallions to the 25-21 win.
Both teams had set-point opportunities in the third set before a Santa Margarita service error gave San Juan Hills the winning point of a 29-27 triumph.
Santa Margarita showed plenty of comeback determination in the fourth set. The Eagles took an 8-1 lead and, with Real, senior Memphis Burnett and Kate Jackson making the big plays, they went on to a 25-19 win to force a fifth set.
San Juan Hills got off to a great start in the fifth set and kept its momentum going to win it 15-9 and capture the match.
Hodges, the MVP of the Mohs tournament, said the Stallions’ ability to make the fourth set competitive after falling behind by so much early was a turning point.
Even thought we lost the fourth set, when we started really horribly,” Hodges said,” we still fought our way through the set. We didn’t get it but it gave us momentum to get that fifth set win. I’m really proud of our team.”
The Stallions had endured some difficult times going into the Mohs tournament with losses to Newport Harbor (three sets to two), JSerra (3-2) and San Clemente (3-1) in succession.
“We went through some tough losses,” Stickland said. “Going five sets against Newport Harbor, going five against JSerra, losing in four to San Clemnte. Brutal losses back to back to back. Then our team responded at Dave Mohs and now to have the full-strength Santa Margarita team we went against, it was fun to watch.”