Patriots' offense too much for Grizzlies

Often times when teams drop a big playoff game, a letdown follows.

The No. 8 Granite Hills volleyball team was playing along after losing a back-breaking third game, falling behind 21-9 in the fourth.

With minutes remaining in most of the Grizzlies’ careers, the home team gave its fans one last fight, however. Granite (16-12) stormed back and after a 12-2 run, found itself down just two points with the crowd stomping and screaming.

But No. 9 Hoover (Fresno) wouldn’t surrender the lead and Marissa Toscano officially ended the Grizzlies’ season with a match-ending tip, securing the 3-1 (22-25, 25-15, 25-20, 25-22) victory and sending the Patriots (11-20) to the Division III quarterfinals.

“When they came out in that fourth game, I thought we were gonna fold, 25 to 5 or 6,” Granite coach Bri Yorba said. “For them to come back and fight the way they did and got the crowd pumped up, that was a good note to end on.”

Melissa Vang’s untouched ace gave the Patriots the 12-point lead and the Grizzlies looked like a deflated, beaten team. But top smasher Emily Fechner, who had a team-high 13 kills, got the run started with a kill and a tip to cut the lead to 10. Then, after a Natalie Congdon serve hit the net, the Patriots committed two errors and allowed blocks to Fechner and junior Kaitlin Fife.

“We didn’t wanna leave anything on the court,” Fechner said. “We wanted to put on a show; we didn’t want to end at 25-6.”

The show continued when Granite scored the next three points — two off Hoover errors, the third off a Fechner rejection — to force the Patriots to take another timeout and increase the gym’s decibel level.

Zoe Kisling’s ace put the Patriots’ lead at 23-21, but that was as close as Granite would get as Kisling missed her next serve and Toscano subsequently silenced the comeback.

“I think a lot of our problems (stemmed from) never seeing them play before,” Fechner said. “I don’t think it was (the fact they were from) Fresno, I think it was more of the fact that we haven’t seen them play before. They weren’t really a height team, but they could still deliver.”

Meranda Watkins led the Patriots with 15 kills with teammate Destiney Real getting 14. Granite has just one player capable of matching that offensive output and her presence was missed at the end of the tiebreaking third game.

The Grizzlies, tied at 1 with the Patriots, were blown off the court in game two but matched Hoover on nearly every point for the bulk of game three. Tied at 19, Fechner departed as Yorba needed a fresh back-row player (Fechner is a middle blocker). What followed may have been the crucial stretch of the match, as Real and Toscano combined to smash four kills and give Hoover a pivotal 2-1 match advantage.

The junior 6-footer said watching the game slip away from the bench was very difficult.

“It’s hard just because I see my teammates give up and it makes me mad because I know that they can push themselves,” Fechner said. “It’s hard because I feel sometimes that they have a different attitude when I’m on the court towards when I’m on the bench.

“I just think that a good hit gets everyone pumped up (or) a good block. For example, when I get a good hit then everyone’s pumped up and we all wanna smash.”

Yorba said her team struggled to stop the bevy of hitters in green on both rockets and taps.

“It’s very hard to play defense when you’re going against great hitters all night,” she said. “They were killing us with the tips and they had great hits.”

Vang had to have made Granite setter Jennifer Landers glance twice, as she placed several tips all over the court in spots Grizzlies weren’t near, which is Landers’ trademark.

Granite was able to win game one despite trailing 21-19. Four straight Hoover errors put the Grizzlies in front and Vanessa Alcantar’s baseline kill put them up two. Another Patriot error gave Granite the early lead.

The Grizzlies couldn’t quite duplicate that form in a whole game the rest of the night.

“That’s kind of like how we’ve been all season. We’re up then we come back the next game and we’re just down,” Yorba said.

Yorba said this senior nucleus was one of the more successful ones in school history.

“We have eight seniors on the team and they’ll never be forgotten,” she said. “They’ve made quite a stamp on Granite Hills volleyball.”

Landers had 13 assists and three kills in her final game in black while senior libero Deanna Alamillo had 12 digs.

Marissa Martinez tallied a kill and six digs as well. Alcantar registered five kills and seven digs.