Three straight titles

CORONA DEL MAR — The CIF playoffs actually start next week, but in terms of intensity they started Thursday night for the Corona del Mar High girls’ volleyball team.

Yelling fans on both sides? Check. An extremely close, seesaw-type match in the Pacific Coast League finale? Check.

Only Beckman stood in the way of the Sea Kings winning the title outright, and the Patriots weren’t giving an inch for much of the match.

Eventually, however, the Sea Kings came from behind to make sure the title was all theirs after posting a 25-21, 21-25, 16-25, 26-24, 15-11 victory at CdM.

The league title is the third straight for Corona del Mar (17-6, 7-1 in league). University finishes second in league, and Beckman (19-9, 5-3) is third. If Beckman had topped CdM on Thursday, there would have been a three-way tie for first that would have required a series of coin flips.

But CdM was determined to prevent that from happening, especially after losing at Beckman in five games in the teams’ first league meeting Oct. 21.

“It was so fun at the end,” said junior Amanda Nickel, who had 14 kills and five service aces. She, along with senior outside Jenny Martin (six kills), missed the teams’ first meeting due to an ankle injury. “Everyone was so loud and cheering. It’s good to see.

“It was really painful to watch [the first match] from the bench. I think Jenny and I were definitely very pumped up to face them again.”

Junior outside Sydney Brombal had a team-high 15 kills and 13 digs for CdM, which was down 2-1 in games and also trailed for most of Game 4. But the Sea Kings drew closer and battled back from a 22-20 deficit late, going ahead, 25-24, on Nickel’s kill then winning the game when a Beckman attempt was just long.

CdM went up, 8-3, in Game 5 in front of the raucous crowd. Beckman then rallied for five straight points, three in a row coming on kills from standout junior Lydia Bai (34 kills).

But the Sea Kings finished the match on a 7-3 run of their own.

Junior Madie Smith had 49 assists and 14 digs for the Sea Kings, ranked No. 4 in the CIF Southern Section Division II-AA coaches’ poll. Beckman is ranked No. 10.

CdM sophomore Morgan Boukather also finished strong and had 11 kills. Sophomore libero Catherine Sullivan added a team-high 20 digs.

“I feel like it was as intense as a CIF match, “ Brombal said. “... They’re fighters. They have a lot of really good players. But I think that we fought harder, and our drive really came out. I feel like we wanted it more than they did, and it came out.”

First-year CdM Coach Darryl Gan wasn’t necessarily happy that his team did things like miss 12 serves in Game 2. But, he said, tough matches are good heading into CIF.

“We overcame some demons in that match, which is good,” said Gan, who also liked the play of Hailey Senske and Sara Folks off the bench. “It’s nice to see them struggle and then recover, and luckily for us we ended up on the positive side. Even though we’re at the end of our season and heading into CIF, I’m still mainly focused on growth. I want to see them put in situations where they’re pushed, and see how they react. I think today we did a good job ... these five-game matches are good for us to learn how to compete.”

His team should have another tough match tonight when Corona del Mar plays host to rival Newport Harbor in the Battle of the Bay at 6 p.m.