All photos by Damin Esper
Emilia Angulo punched the one-handed kill over the net. When it found the floor, the Piedmont High School girls volleyball team erupted, the bench running onto the floor, their championship dreams turned into screams as the team captured the first North Coast Section championship in school history.
The Highlanders outlasted a tough San Domenico team in five sets, 25-18, 23-25, 22-25, 25-11, 15-7 on Nov. 6 to take the NCS Division 3 crown.
“Oh my god, it feels amazing,” libero Allyson Huynh said. “I have never felt this amount of happiness before. I’m so proud. In the second set it would have been easy for us to just give up and just to take the loss. We worked so hard for this. I’m so proud of how everything came together and how hard we fought. Even when things were really tough, we pushed through and we won.”
Things did get tough. After taking the first set, Piedmont lost two close sets as the Panthers settled in. San Domenico scored the first seven points of the second set. Marin Louie had a kill for the opening point, then took over serve for six more. Cristina Guarriello and Aletta Eerkens-Beck put down spikes during the run.
The Highlanders (19-13) rallied back with Lucia Dorsey blocking an Eerkens-Beck kill attempt. Charlotte Bailey and Olivia Stevens had kills and Carina Vora had an ace and it was suddenly 7-6 Panthers.
But San Domenico was able to push the lead back up to 14-8. Then, Sarina Hill took over serve for Piedmont and the Highlanders rallied again. Maika Ting scored a spike and Izara Dando blocked Sarah Gordon for a point. Hill served for six points and it was tied, 14-14.
The score was 23-23 when Guarriello scored on a one-handed kill. Dorsey then sent a ball into the net and the Panthers had survived to tie the match.
The third set was a close, back-and-forth affair. Neither team could get more than a two-point lead until San Domenico got up 15-12 on a Guarriello ace. Piedmont stayed close but never got the lead again. Gordon scored on a put down and Guarriello punched a one-hander to make it 24-20. The Highlanders tried to rally again, but Gordon scored on a spike to clinch the set.
Now, Piedmont faced elimination.
“Our coaches like to do this little game every single time we’re emotionally in a rut,” Huynh said. “It’s this look down, look up game. It’s like a reset. That seemed to work.”
And the equivalent of the Warriors’ death lineup took the court. That’s Vora, Dando, Dorsey, Angulo, Hill, and Hazel Schaeffer to start the set.
“End of third set we knew this was a must-win situation,” Ting said. “Our coaches told us beforehand we were going to put in our must-win lineup. We were really focused, ready to go. We knew we had to keep our errors low.”
Again, the set started close. Piedmont had an 8-7 lead when it started to pull away. Dorsey scored a spike followed by one from Fiona Olsen. Ting had a key spike.
Then, Schaeffer served for a five-point run to make it 18-9. Angulo had a kill, Dando punched a ball over, and Schaeffer had three consecutive aces.
The set concluded with Angulo blocking a spike from Eerkens-Beck. The championship would come down to a 15-point fifth set.
It was tied 3-3 when Stevens served a four-point run to give the Highlanders the lead for good. Stevens had two aces, then Ting and Dorsey had kills. The lead was maintained and Piedmont won the title.
Angulo said it was nervous time when the Highlanders were down 2-1.
“At that moment, I think we were all just scared,” she said. “Obviously, we wanted this really, really badly. We were able to demonstrate that in the fourth set. In those moments where a fire is lit underneath us, and we are like, we need this, we need to win this — when we really, really want something I feel like our team can get there and absolutely demolish.”
Angulo is one of multiple players who were moved up to varsity late in the season. She had a huge game in the championship with 16 kills, including several at key moments.
“I knew it from Day 1, I kept telling the coaches, bring her up, bring her up,” Huynh said. “Every single day for her. You can just see how she plays. She wants to win, she wants to get kills, have fun. That really just shows the difference she makes. Several amazing kills.
“Her court vision is just amazing, she jumps so high. She’s not six-foot. The way she was able to swing and see the court. I think that’s her biggest strength.”
Said Angulo, “I feel like I’ve improved so much in the past couple of weeks that I’ve been on varsity, that I’ve been so lucky to have been able to help the team and contribute.”
She added shyly, “I think today was one of my best games. I’m pretty proud.”
Ting set a tone in the first set, scoring the Highlanders’ first four points on four consecutive spikes. She finished with 23 kills. She is going to play club with Louie and was fired up.
“I was really excited to play against her and I was really motivated to make an impact on the court,” Ting said. “It was really fun. It was really rewarding to get those first four points.”
Coach Mike Glass said his team had shown the potential all season.
“They all play high-level club,” he said. “It’s really great to see them do it and close against a great team. I’m super-happy for them.”
Piedmont earned a berth in the California Interscholastic Federation Division 3 tournament. As the 16th seed in the Northern California regional, they will play a first round match at top seed Pacific Grove on Nov. 10 at 6 p.m. It’s the first time the Highlanders have made the state tournament.