Eagles stun Oilers

COSTA MESA — Coach Jim Huffman believed no one gave his Estancia High girls’ volleyball team a chance.

The Eagles’ opponent, Huntington Beach, in the opening round of the CIF Southern Section Division I-A playoffs gave him a reason to think so.

“Their coach was talking to our announcer. This is how much he knew they thought they were going by us,” Huffman said. “[The coach] said, ‘Yeah, you know, we’re doing this and this, so hopefully if we can make it to the finals,’ you know, [it was] blah, blah, blah.

“They were talking about getting to the finals.”

The Eagles stopped the Oilers in the first round, pulling off a 25-22, 25-20, 23-25, 25-19 upset at home Tuesday night.

Huntington Beach’s playoff hope looked like it was going to end sooner.

Estancia (19-7) was on the verge of recording a sweep en route to advancing to the second round to play No. 2-seeded Santa Barbara (22-7) Thursday.

For a moment, the Eagles gave life to the third-place Oilers (15-13)out of the competitive Sea View League.

The Eagles in Game 3 led, 20-14. Five points away from qualifying out of the opening round for the third straight year under Huffman.

All of a sudden, the Oilers rallied, forcing another game by closing out the third game on an 11-3 run. None of the current Huntington Beach players had played a postseason match in their careers until Tuesday’s.

“When we got through Game 3, they really started to relax a little bit,” Huntington Beach first-year coach Craig Pazanti said. “I thought if we could get to a fifth game, we might have a good shot.”

Estancia, the second-place team out of the Orange Coast League, made sure it ended in four games.

Eleven times the two teams found themselves tied in Game 4. Estancia middle blocker Maddie Smith broke the final tie with one of her 12 kills.

With Estancia’s Amy Hartwell now serving, Annie Tomasek recorded back-to-back kills.

One came on a devastating blast. The other a tip behind two players at the net.

The Eagles outscored the Oilers, 6-1, to clinch the match.

During the run, Tomasek recorded three of her match-high 20 kills and Smith contributed one of her four blocks.

“We just came out knowing if we lost, we were done,” Tomasek said.

Behind the Eagles’ success was their defense and ability to dig junior outside hitter Kellie Turner’s booming shoots.

Everyone helped out. Tomasek finished with 20 digs, Hartwell 21 digs and Amanda Watson led everyone with 23.

The game plan was to contain Turner. Estancia accomplished more than that.

“We knew she was going to try to hit the line, so we stacked our defense over on the line,” Huffman said. “We tried that against other [talented] girls and it hasn’t worked. Against her, it worked.

“She got out of her game because she was frustrated that she was getting dug and [she] started pressing and started hitting balls long.”

Estancia shut down Turner when it counted.

After single-handedly bringing the Oilers back with five kills and one block toward the end of Game 3, Turner collected only one kill in Game 4, giving her 19 for the night.

“We weren’t supposed to beat them,” Huffman said. “They’re ranked like 100 times in front of us.”

If that’s the case, Estancia’s next opponent, Santa Barbara, is off the charts compared to the Eagles.

“Put it this way,” Huffman said of going against the second-place team out of the competitive Channel League, which was won by top-seeded Dos Pueblos. “It’s going to be a lot more fun if we win the coin flip [today] and we get to play here.

“That’s a long drive up to play the No. 2 seed.”

DAVID CARRILLO PEÑALOZA may be reached at (714) 966-4612 or at [email protected].