Boys volleyball has evolved into such a power game that service errors are often seen as palatable as long as a team offsets the errors with a decent amount of aces.
In Friday’s CIF Division II state championship match against Northern California champion Sanger, Francis Parker’s ratio was lopsided in the wrong direction.
Playing a day earlier than the rest of the divisions because of Saturday’s graduation, the Lancers had 20 service errors vs. just one ace, and the result was a 29-27, 26-28, 25-22, 25-20 loss in just the second year of the state championship in boys volleyball.
“There are plenty of things that could have been different in all sorts of different ways, but at the end of the day, I’m super proud of our guys,” Lancers coach Q Chambers said. “It’s always difficult to travel to matches, but we battled through, and that Sanger team is really good.”
Because easy serves usually equal easy first-ball sideouts for the opponent, serving tough is necessary the higher the level. The philosophy on the boys side tends to be one of putting up with the errors as long as you mix in some aces and force the receiving team out of system.
The Lancers (31-11) held a pair of five-point leads in set one but finished with seven service errors. They fought off two set points and tied it at 24 on Miles Custer’s stuff block of Sanger’s Sebastian Salazar.
Facing set point again at 25-24, Francis Parker setter Iker Salgado stuffed an overpass kill attempt. Custer’s kill tied it at 27, but Custer got blocked facing set point.
Francis Parker cleaned up its service game in set two and again held a five-point lead, this time at 19-15 on Ronit Khushu’s kill. The Apaches ran off four straight to tie it at 22. A back-and-forth end of the set saw Custer’s kill get the Lancers to set point and Abisai Martinez’s kill in transition tie the match.
Custer finished with a match-high 20 kills with three stuff blocks and an ace. Junior middle Kevin O’Brien was second with 17 kills and two stuff blocks.
Khushu finished with five kills and two stuff blocks, Martinez also added five kills and Ben Dragasits finished with four.
The third set was one for the ages. Custer had a pair of kills to begin the set, and it was like a heavyweight fight after that. There were 17 ties and only four instances where a team scored more than two straight points. After Sanger called timeout at 21-all, the Lancers didn’t earn a point the rest of the way.
Francis Parker kept it close in the fourth but made 12 errors. The Lancers came into the match on the heels of their third Southern California Regional Championship in program history.
“It’s always difficult to end the season on something like this, but it was a great season overall,” Chambers said. “I couldn’t be prouder of our boys and especially the seniors.”