Royals beat Knight for league title in volleyball
Quartz Hill rebounds to beat Knight 3-1
QUARTZ HILL — The Quartz Hill boys volleyball team had a slow start on an emotional senior night on Thursday, but the Royals recovered to win their ninth consecutive Golden League championship.
Quartz Hill defeated Knight in four sets 20-25, 25-21, 25-18, 25-16 at Quartz Hill High School.
The Royals (21-12, 13-1) won the league title outright in the final match of the regular season, after entering the day with Lancaster and Knight (15-9, 11-3) tied for second place. The Hawks finish third in league.
“It felt great. It felt just good,” said Quartz Hill senior Payton Martinez, a four-year varsity player. “It felt like all of our work finally paid off and I can leave here knowing that I gave my all in every game I played, including this one. The last one.
“I think we played really good. I think going into CIF, we’re going to keep that energy, if not double it, and we’re going for a ring. The job’s not finished.”
The energy level picked up as the match wore on for the Royals, who got a more decisive performance in each successive set.
The night culminated with a ceremony honoring the five Quartz Hill seniors after the match, as well as the Royals celebrating the league title.
The Quartz Hill seniors honored are Martinez, Kristian Ramones, Ryan Rosas, Aidden Oleno and Kalub Clark.
“Senior night is always one of those weird kind of games with a lot of energy and a lot of different outside factors going on,” Quartz Hill coach Ryan Dunham said. “I think that kind of showed up in the first set. I thought we grinded it out and played really well. Those last three sets, I thought we played some really good volleyball.
“We know that Pete Knight is a very quality team. They’re well coached. We knew that they were going to come in and fight, but we knew we wanted to come in and make a statement after that five-setter that we had at their place.”
Knight has never beaten Quartz Hill, but came close in their first meeting this season. The Royals won in five sets on March 20, 18-25, 19-25, 25-21, 25-12, 16-14.
“I thought that we came out real strong at the beginning,” Knight coach Joe Susilla said. “Then, as we went through, we kind of let a couple of things outside our control get in our head and sap our energy a little bit.
“(Bonner), that kid, even the first match, he was kind of the one that pulled it away for them in that fifth set. I think he played a big role. We just could not find a way to dig him or block him in our
system.”
The first set on Thursday was back and forth, with eight lead changes before Quartz Hill took a 15-14 lead.
The Royals built a threepoint lead, 19-16, but the Hawks answered and took a 20-19 lead they would not relinquish.
Knight got two kills by senior Julian Ortiz down the stretch, a block by Johnny Diaz, an ace by Diego Ramirez, and Erik Villamar-Teodoro had a block on set point.
Ortiz had three kills in the first set, Kier Tayag had two kills, Villamar-Teodoro had a kill and a block and Ramirez had a kill and an ace.
“I feel like we started off strong,” said Ortiz, a four-year varsity player. “I feel like we just didn’t keep the full focus the entire game. I feel like that’s where we messed up.”
Quartz Hill’s Joe Bonner had three kills and a block in the first set, Ramones had two kills and a block and Rosas had two kills.
Although Knight jumped out to an early lead to start the second set, it was brief.
The Royals led by as many as three points, but it did not last.
The Hawks rallied and took a lead seven times, including 2019 on a kill by Ortiz.
But Quartz Hill answered and did not surrender the advantage after taking a 22-21 lead on a kill by Ramones. The Royals closed out the second set by scoring four consecutive points to even the match.
“Tonight, it was a rough start in the first set,” said Ramones, a three-year varsity player. “We’ve been in a slump for like the past two, three weeks, where we’re always off to a slow start, but hopefully we can get rid of that by CIF.
“It’s always been energy, for the past three years I’ve been on varsity. Energy has always been a big part of our mess ups.”
Bonner and Ramones both had five kills apiece in the second set and Oleno had four kills.
Ortiz and Villamar-Teodoro both had four kills in the second set and Diaz finished with two aces, a kill and a block.
“We knew we couldn’t underestimate them. They took us to five last time,” Ramones said.
“We wanted to start off really fast, but it just didn’t happen.”
There were three ties early in the third set before Quartz Hill took a 4-3 lead it would not relinquish on a kill by Oleno.
The Royals clinched set point on a kill by Rosas, who finished with two kills and an ace in the third set.
Bonner had six kills in the third, Ramones had three kills and Benjamin Alfaro had three kills and a block.
Ortiz had five kills in the third, David Cova added two kills and Villamar-Teodoro finished with three blocks.
“There’s little mistakes here, little mistakes there that we can fix before our first match,” Susilla said of the playoffs.
Knight scored the first point to start the fourth set, but Quartz Hill quickly took a lead and never looked back after Bonner scored a kill to give the Royals a 3-2 lead they would not surrender.
Oleno had five kills in the fourth set, Bonner had three kills and a block, Ramones and Rosas both had two kills and an ace and Alfaro had a kill and a block.
Rosas clinched the set and the match with an ace on a match point.
“As a whole, I couldn’t ask for a better season,” Dunham said. “We knew we lost so many guys last year from a league championship team. There were a lot of people expecting us to maybe take a step back and I really put the challenge out to the boys before we even started the season, ‘You’re still the league champs. Somebody has got to beat you.’ They’re a very talented group of boys.”
Quartz Hill lost nine players to graduation from last year’s team that went undefeated in league and returned five players.
The Royals advanced to the CIF-Southern Section Division 4 quarterfinals last season.
The playoff brackets will be released on Saturday.
Knight finished fourth in league last season and won a Division 5 wild-card match, but lost a second-round wild-card match to Desert Christian.
“We feel confident,” Ortiz said. “All it is it’s a mental game. We have what it takes to compete with everybody in league and even outside of league. It just comes with confidence and staying focused on the game.”