CIF finals in boys volleyball, boys lacrosse and girls lacrosse full of Metro teams

The boys volleyball and girls lacrosse spring playoffs have turned out spectacular for the Mater Dei Catholic, San Ysidro’ and Chula Vista Learning Community Charter boys volleyball teams and the Olympian girls and MDC boys lacrosse teams as they all found themselves contending for coveted San Diego Section championship trophies.

Top-seeded Mater Dei Catholic (28-10) will meet sixth-seeded Marathana Christian (26-5) in Friday’s Division III final at Mira Mesa High School at 5 p.m.

The Metro-South Bay League co-champions swept fifth-seeded Cambridge School by scores of 25-19, 25-11, 25-18 in Tuesday’s division semifinals to add to a 3-1 quarterfinal playoff win against eighth-seeded Calexico (25-15, 25-22, 23-25, 25-17) on May 8.

Maranatha Christian eliminated seventh-seeded Madison (17-16) in a 3-0 sweep in Tuesday’s other semifinal to advance.

Thursday’s finals at MiraCosta College features a pair of South County teams.

Second-seeded San Ysidro (23-10) paired up with top-seeded Monte Vista (23-12) in the Division V final while fifth-seeded Chula Vista Learning Community Charter (13-10) matched up against third-seeded Tri-City Christian (14-12) in the Division V-AA final.

San Ysidro topped third-seeded Crawford, 3-2, in Tuesday’s semifinals to advance to Thursday’s final. The Cougars moved out in front 2-0 on the strength of 25-23, 25-20 victories before the Colts (19-8) rallied with identical 25-19 wins to knot the proceedings at 2-2, thereby necessitating a tie-breaking fifth game.

San Ysidro won the tiebreaker 15-7 to reach the championship game.
It was the sixth straight home victory for the Cougars, who tied Southwest for this year’s Metro-Pacific League title.

Junior Gabriel Cariaga led SYHS with 10 kills while junior Matthew Sarsoza had three serving aces, junior Ryan Nance had 24 digs and senior Sebastian Castro accumulated 36 assists.

The Cougars swept 10th-seeded Imperial (8-23) in the preceding quarterfinals.

Mater Dei Catholic’s boys lacrosse team (14-5) grabbed the spotlight with Tuesday’s gritty 9-8 overtime win over second-seeded Valhalla (13-5) in the Division III semifinals.
The third-seeded Crusaders will play No. 1 Classical Academy (17-3) in Saturday’s championship game at 11 a.m. at Westview High School.

Second-seeded Olympian (12-10) will play top-seeded Tri-City Christian (14-3) in Saturday’s Division III final at San Dieguito Academy at 11 a.m. after engineering a monstrous rally to nip third-seeded Mission Bay (16-3) by a 7-6 tally in Wednesday’ semifinal after downing seventh-seeded West Hills, 13-4, in Monday’s quarterfinal.

The Lady Eagles trailed 6-2 with four minutes to play in regulation but scored five unanswered goals to claim the upstart victory and secure a berth in Satrurday’s championship game.

A halftime pep talk seemed to do wonders in the final minutes. Olympian narrowed the score to 6-4 on a goal by Almira Daplas. Less than a minute later, Maleah Edwards scored to make the score 6-5 and the fantastic finish was on full blast.

Makalah Stainaker tied the game, 6-6, with 2:21 remaining on the scoreboard to further excited the home crowd and players on the field.

The game-winning goal was reserved for Kirsten Licon on a perfectly-placed shot with 47 seconds to play. From there, the Lady Eagles held on defensively to forge history.

“Huge win,” OHS coach Keith Quigley underscored.

Licon tallied four times and tacked on an assist in the quarterfinal win over West Hills while Edwards. Stainaker and Ashley Plascencia each had two goals. Elizabeth Bromley led the defensive effort with six gounr balls while Licon and Jenna Garcia followed with five ground balls each.