Sports
Volleyball (continued from page 41)
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digs in the 25-23, 25-22, 25-22 victory. Fourth-seeded Menlo-Atherton (28-7) l while San Ramon ended its season at 32-11. The Bears next will face No. 1 seed St. Francis of Sacramento (36-2) on Saturday at 7 p.m. M-A beat SF-Sac last year in the NorCal semifinals before losing to Palo Alto in the finals. “They’re going to be a good team,” said Doherty. “We just have to be solid all around and know how to pick each other up.” San Ramon Valley began the match on 6-0 run with senior Emily Reder leading the way with three kills. The Bears would climb back with a 6-1 run of their own with three kills from senior Ali Spindt. Junior Paulina King, who turned 16 on Monday, took over the rest of the match with four kills to close on Game 1. She finished with a teamhigh 10 kills plus 15 digs. Spindt, who had missed a good portion of the season with a lower back injury, had seven kills in the game and finished with 27 digs. She had two matches with triple-doubles in the Central Coast Section playoffs last week. “I’m at like 80 percent right now,” said Spindt. “I just have to ease my way back in right now. I’ll play anything coach wants me to play; whatever I can do to help the team . . . we want to win; we want to go to state.” Doherty, who led the Bears with 375 assists this season, contributed with nine assists in Game 2 to lead M-A. Doherty connected with King four times in game three. The Bears went on an impressive 12-5 run near the end of the match with sophomore Alyssa Ostrow knocking in three kills. The visitors got to within 24-22 in Game 3, but Spindt found Doherty on the final point of
the game and she smashed it past the Wolves’ defense to finish off the sweep. “She took a big swing at that,” said said M-A first-year coach Ron Whitmill. “She’s been a great player all year. If we didn’t have someone as versatile as her on the team, we would’ve never gotten through all the injuries we had this year. She’s been the person to fill in that gap this year.” Whitmill also got 24 digs from Virginia Lane on Tuesday. Should The Bears get by St. Francis-Sacramento, they would stay on the road for the NorCal finale — either at No. 2 Granite Bay (40-6) or No. 3 Cal High (30-3) of San Ramon. “We’ll take it as far as we can go,” said Whitmill. “Our motto all year has been not to worry about wins or losses — just come out and try to be in the moment.” Just a few miles away, top-seeded Sacred Heart Prep opened the Division IV playoffs with a 25-20, 2522, 25-14 victory over visiting No. 8 Ripon Christian. The Gators (31-5) were led by senior Ellie Shannon (10 kills, four blocks), senior Sonia Abuel-Saud (10 kills, nine digs), sophomore Victoria Garrick (eight kills, eight digs), senior Payton Smith (eight kills, four blocks), senior Helen Gannon (13 digs), and senior Cammie Merten (31 assists). Sacred Heart Prep, which has the home court advantage throughout the playoffs, next will host No. 4 seed Bear River (31-12) of Grass Valley on Saturday in the semifinals at 7 p.m. Bear River produced a 2025, 25-15, 30-28, 25-20 winner over No. 5 Cardinal Newman (25-9) of Santa Rosa in its opener. Should the Gators win Saturday, they’ll host the NorCal finals on Tuesday at 7 p.m. The likely opponent would be No. 2 seed St. Patrick/St. Vincent of Vallejo. In Portola Valley, Priory earned a berth in the semifinals of the Divi-
Stephanie Brugger (11) and Marine Hall-Poirier (5) put up the block against Le Grand in Priory’s 3-0 NorCal Division V opening win. sion V playoffs with a 25-23, 25-13, 27-25 first-round victory over No. 7 Le Grand. Senior Briana Willhite had a great night with 13 kills and only one error while hitting .571. She added four solo blocks and four digs. Junior Marine Hall-Poirier had another good night with 17 kills and 11 digs. Michaela Koval and Emily Tonogai had 18 and 17 digs, respectively, while Clara Johnson and set-
ter Stephanie Swan also had solid matches for Priory. The No. 2-seeded Panthers (22-8) next will host No. 3 St. Joseph-Notre Dame of Alameda (27-11) on Saturday at 7 p.m. St. Joseph-ND advanced wit a 25-15, 25-20, 25-20 win over No. 6 Hamilton (23-10). Should Priory reach the NorCal finals, it likely would face No. 1 Branson at College of Marin on Tueday at 7 p.m. N
CROSS COUNTRY
Local runners heading to the State Meet
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wo teams and nine individuals will be busy in Fresno on Saturday looking to cap their cross-country season at the CIF State Meet at Woodward Park. The teams competing are the Priory boys and Castilleja girls in Division V. Priory will send Chris Gregory, Andrew Christensen, Joe Farned, Leo Berez and Ross Corey as its scorers from the Central Coast Section Championships two weeks ago. Castilleja’s scorers from CCS are Fiona Maloney-McCrystle, Alina Brown, Abby Holsten, Julia Lodgen, and Teni Amos. The Menlo-Atherton boys will be represented by senior George Baier, who was seventh at the CCS Division I finals. In the girls’ Division I race, Paly sophomore Katie Foug earned a state meet berth with a third-place
Sacred Heart Prep’s (L-R) Gillian Belton, Steven Glassmoyer and Daniel Hill will run in the CIF State Meet on Saturday. finish of 18:57 and Gunn freshman Gillian Meeks also earned a trip. In the boys’ Division IV race, Sacred Heart Prep will send two runners to the state meet after senior Steven Glassmoyer took third in 16:07 and sophomore Daniel Hill was seventh in 16:26 at CCS. They are the first SHP boys to reach the State Meet in five years. In the Division IV girls’ race, Menlo freshman Zoe Enright earned
a state meet berth by taking fourth at CCS and teammate Lizzie Lacy, a sophomore, also earned a trip following her seventh-place finish. Joining them will be Sacred Heart Prep’s Gillian Belton, who finished eighth at CCS. She’ll be making her second straight trip to the state finals. Also advancing to the state meet as an individual was Eastside Prep’s Christian Rosales. N