It’s hard to define a season, particularly one that ends in a team’s last possible contest.
It’s just as hard to pick one moment in time that defines a championship match.
But being down 15-12 in the fourth set of Saturday’s CIF State Division 4 Boys Volleyball Championship, there’s little doubt the Mater Dei Catholic Crusaders will the following eight minutes for the rest of their lives.
The Crusaders went on a run for the ages, scoring 13 of the set’s next 14 points to earn a 25-18, 25-19, 20-25, 25-16 win over Livingston at Fresno City College in California’s first-ever state championship for the sport.
“I knew they wanted it just as bad as I did,” coach Marissa Ritchie said. “It’s very hard to coach a team with this dynamic and wanting it. I didn’t have to beg them to come to practice. They had to beg me basically. Open gyms, early mornings, they wanted this. Our goal was CIF, and we did so much more. This is them that they wanted this so bad.”
After winning back-to-back section titles, the goal for Mater Dei Catholic (33-10) became to hang its 12th state championship banner in Bosco Gym. It took a legion of mostly senior leaders to refocus the goal.
Senior outside hitter Oskar Manguy-Meza once again led the way with 14 kills, three aces and two stuff blocks. His kill on a D ball in transition tied the fourth set at 15-15 and marked the fifth spot on the court in which he recorded a kill.
“Watching their offense made me a little nervous at the start, but I had confidence in our back row defense since I know all the practices we’ve done on digging and out-of-system setting,” Manguy-Meza said. “I felt like the confidence we had in each other didn’t bother me as much since they had an athletic offense.”
Senior libero Ethan Bundang had 15 digs to lead the defensive effort.
Senior setter Aaron Wood went to his middles often against the Wolves (37-7), resulting in junior Derek Jacobo finishing second on the team with 10 kills while adding four stuff blocks.
Jacobo and senior Reagan Nicanor combined for five kills in set one as Wood set the middle often in a dominant win. Jacobo’s stuff block on match point ended it.
“Once we started to get that run toward the end, I felt really confident,” Jacobo said. “We just wanted to keep going. We just wanted to finish it. I was just so into that moment like, I want to finish this right now.”
Manguy-Meza and Jacobo combined on a stuff block for a 14-9 lead in the second set. They built a 22-15 lead, then took advantage of several Livingston errors to close it out.
Mater Dei Catholic couldn’t close in the third set. Senior outside hitter Liam Kingston (seven kills) put a ball away to close the gap to five but it wasn’t enough.
That set up the fourth. The Crusaders played from behind and appeared headed to a fifth until the heroics. Some of the highlights after Manguy-Meza’s D kill: two kills by Wood, stuff blocks by Wood and Jacobo, a kill by Jacobo, a rally-ending kill by Kingston and two back-row kills from junior Adrian Trevino, including an improbable roll shot to the deep corner.
The final eight points came with junior Alfredo Ceballos serving.
Championships are won with big plays at big moments but are built through hours of practices and competing. A process essentially two full years in the making — and whittled down to eight minutes — can now finish with a state title.
“We set our goal at the start of the season just to win the San Diego Section,” Kingston said. “Once we saw the brackets came out and saw the No. 1 seed, we had to get to work. We prepared in every way possible. This is an incredible experience.”
