By Damien Secore, Correspondent
Having already gone farther than any other athletic team in school history, the goal for the St. Lucy girls’ volleyball team was to take another step forward. Going on the road to face 2008-09 CIF state champion La Costa Canyon and a lineup that included five players who were at least 6 feet tall proved to be too tall an order, literally and figuratively. The Regents lost a late lead in the match’s pivotal third game and fell in the CIF State Division II Southern California Regional Final for the second consecutive year as host La Costa Canyon parlayed its power and height into a 25-19, 18-25, 25-22, 25-18 victory.
“At the end of the day, their size was just a little too much to overcome,” St. Lucy’s coach Sean Douglas said. “I knew they were big and we prepared and practiced for it. But there’s not very many 6-foot-3 girls walking around on our campus to practice with us.”
The Regents (29-7), who won their second consecutive CIF-Southern Section championship on Nov. 18, saw their eight-match win streak halted.
The Mavericks (31-8), who moved from Division I to Division II this year and won their eighth consecutive CIF-San Diego Section girls’ volleyball title earlier this month, faces Northern California champion St. Francis (33-7) in Saturday’s CIF State Division II championship match at 5p.m. at Concordia University.
St. Lucy’s, with only two players on the roster at least 6-feet tall, faced its biggest and
most powerful competition of the year. La Costa controlled the net, thanks to its 6-2 front line of Natalie Bausback, Brittany Abercrombie and Cosy Burnette.
The teams split the first two games and the Regents were poised to take the third game with leads of 8-3, 17-13 and 20-17, but the Mavericks scored the last four points of the game. La Costa Canyon’s Jordan Robbins had three kills and a block to win four of the Mavericks’ last eight points.
“Coverage and defense, we knew that those two things were going to have to be there,” said senior co-captain Jackie Macy. “I think we got kind of complacent, looking forward to the (fourth) game.”
