Sports
Danville Volleyball Set For Big Year
Mustangs and Wolves tackle the Logan Bailey Memorial Invitational Tournament in Antioch Saturday.
Doing more with less has always been the motto of the Monte Vista men's volleyball program. Even though the school has around 2,500 students, only 24 of them came out for the team last year. This year the number increased only slightly to 26.
But that one percent gave 100 percent Saturday, at the Logan Bailey Memorial Invitational at Deer Valley High in Antioch.
The Mustangs made it to the final game of the silver bracket before falling to San Mateo's Serra Padres in two close games, 25-23 and 25-21. It was the end of a very long day of play for the Mustangs, who arrived at 7:45 a.m. and didn't finish playing Serra until 9:45 that night.
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Making it to the silver-bracket finals seemed impossible for the Mustangs early on, starting the day with tough losses to El Dorado's Oak Ridge and host Deer Valley in pool play.
"They're both good teams," said Mustangs coach Mike Bongay. "Point for point, I think we did really well against them. We caused a lot of errors and only lost by a handful of points. If you eliminate the handful of errors we made, we're right there with them."
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The Mustangs bounced back to beat Livermore, then fell to a very good Chico squad in a quick two games. Chico would go on to the gold-bracket finals to be beaten in three games by Foothill, one of the best teams in the East Bay.
So how does a team like Monte Vista manage to compete at the same level with teams that turn away more players than they take? Two of Monte Vista's starters, seniors Eric Wong and Hayden Padgett, have never played volleyball competitively before this season. Yet the Mustangs managed to make the North Coast Section playoffs both seasons under Bongay.
Bongay, who began coaching eight years ago for his alma mater San Ramon's Cal High, credits his kids and the hard work they put in. It doesn't hurt that the only returning starter from last year's varsity team, Kyle Thekkek, has transitioned beautifully into his new role as setter.
"He was playing outside last year and now he's our setter," said Bongay. "He's awesome. I would argue that he's one of the best setters in our league, let alone at this tournament."
Junior Mikey Scott, whose father played at Pepperdine, first tried out for volleyball last year. Now in his first year with the varsity squad, Scott is already a team captain. He's a big part of this Mustang team and he'll be an even bigger part next year.
Mustang senior outside hitter Tyler Susa also had an incredible day at the tournament, finishing with 58 kills.
"For a school that doesn't have a lot of guys try out for volleyball, we're pretty darn good at it," said Bongay.
To reach the silver-bracket finals, Monte Vista took out Forestville's El Molino high in two games, 25-17 and 25-23, and then soundly defeated Chico's Pleasant Valley high, 25-20, 25-19. Pleasant Valley had just beaten Danville's San Ramon Valley High School to knock it out of contention.
All six of San Ramon Valley's starters graduated last year and the Wolves are struggling a bit. They played well to defeat Lafayette's Acalanes High Dons earlier in the day. They were down 8-6 in the third game before making a couple of key plays, including some nice kills and an ace to win it. Coach Sean Stratton, in his seventh season coaching San Ramon, cited that game as one of the day's highlights for his team.
"I'm not always about winning or losing, I'm more about making sure that teams play to their potential, and right there they did," Stratton said.
Matt Davis and Ryan Russon, the only Wolves seniors this year, are more than just de facto leaders. Davis has been playing for six years and is the most experienced member of the team. Stratton appreciates Davis' calm-and-collected approach to the game and the experience he brings.
"We don't have as much experience as we have had in the past, but we play with energy and have good team chemistry," Stratton said. "I like that a lot. We have a bunch of great kids and they have fun."
