Distracted Hart Falls in 4 Games : Volleyball: Thousand Oaks takes out feuding Indians in second round.

Color the Hart High volleyball team’s demise in newspaper ink.

Due to internal dissension about recent stories that have run in the Newhall Signal, two of the Indians’ best players--including Chad Strickland, who has signed with Cal State Northridge--spent the first game of their Southern Section Division II second-round playoff match against Thousand Oaks on the bench.

That set the tone for Hart, which was defeated by the adrenaline-filled Lancers, 15-10, 8-15, 15-11, 15-13, Tuesday night at Hart.

The victory avenged Thousand Oaks’ first-round defeat to Hart last season. The Lancers (18-2) advanced to the quarterfinals Thursday or Friday against Esperanza.

For Hart (17-1), the uncertainty and distractions prior to the match proved to be more an equally tough opponent as the Lancers.

“We had a team meeting before the match to decide if Chad and I were even going to get to play at all,” Keith Matkin said. “Coach let us play, but I honestly didn’t know if was going to. I was ranting and raving to my brother behind the bench that I wasn’t going to play.”

Matkin was inserted into the match midway through the second game, joining Strickland, who started game two and finished with 18 kills.

“We were kind of wondering why they they didn’t put their starting lineup in,” said Thousand Oaks’ Carrick Peterson, who had a team-high 19 kills.

The reason: Strickland was upset with quote in last Saturday’s Signal from Hart Coach Kent Swick, saying that the team could win without Strickland, but not without teammate Bryan Carichner, who had a match-high 25 kills. Strickland complained to Swick, which led to his benching.

Matkin was quoted in Tuesday’s Signal as saying he was unimpressed with Hart’s first-round opponent, Temple City, which also upset Swick.

“As a coach, I was forced to make a decision,” Swick said. “I was pushed to my limit.”

Swick said he left the decision as to whether Strickland and Matkin would play up to the rest of the players, but they passed the mantle back to him.

“I decided we win together and we lose together, and we weren’t going to lose with somebody out,” Swick said.

Ultimately, the Indians (17-1) lost because their play dissolved into a morass of mistakes after they pulled even by winning the second game.

Trailing, 13-11, in the third game, Hart gave Thousand Oaks the game’s final two points on a rotation violation and a net call.

The Indians were called for five rotation violations, which they blamed on an offense installed for the playoffs.

Thousand Oaks overcame an 8-1 deficit in game four, scoring 10 consecutive points, and put the match away on a block by 6-foot-10 middle blocker Paul Bryant, who had eight kills and six blocks.

Jason Hartman, the Lancers’ 6-6 middle blocker, had 15 kills and seven blocks.