Mean nice girl

By Michael Ashcraft --

Every day, Jillian Jenkins scans the school yard for outcasts. She goes over to him, talks to him and plays basketball with him. She wants him to feel included, part of the Lighthouse family.

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BUT on the volleyball court the NICE girl metamorphoses into the MEANEST opponent. She scans the court for weak spots, slamming the ball through blocks and onto empty floor boards. It crashes like a bowling ball.

On Tuesday, the MEAN GIRL was out in full display. Jill pulled Lighthouse through a tight second set to win and finished off La Quinta High School in the third set to carry her Santa Monica teammates to victory in first round of playoffs.

(Actually, though, she's never mean. She's just COMPETITIVE. Her face projects the seriousness with which she plays. Her hits have scorched players all season and provoke facial expressions of utter disbelief from her opponents.)

Poor La Quinta from Little Saigon, which fell just like Big Saigon did. Poor the Aztecs, who relived the nightmare of Hernan Cortez.

Lighthouse Christian Academy made playoff round #1 as brief as possible: 25-19, 25-21 and 25-15.

One might have predicted the victory during warmups from one simple comparison: height difference. We don't have actual stats, but La Quinta's girls include quite a few Vietnamese (Little Saigon is in Westminster). LCA looked like towers.

Emma Mefford cracked down some early hits early in Set #1 to warn what was to come. By game's end, she scored 6 kills and 2 blocks.

If the Saints can hit, they can also dig and serve. Libero Riley Gonzalez managed 14 digs to keep the ball in play. Antonella Frausto powered knuckleball serves from way behind the serving line to baffle the Aztecs.

Despite playing a rather subdued game (for her), Shayla Papik expertly got 4 kills and 7 assists.

Breakout star Kallie McKinney, a freshman, logged 12 assists. She got blocked a number of times in Set #2, but brought the fire in Set #3.

The game saw Karine Keyser, usually at center, set the ball for a kill on a scramble play where she stepped into the setter's job. It was a work of beauty.

When the backups do just as good as the starters, the other team knows they're in for trouble.

It was Jillian, the nice mean girl, who rose to the challenge of Set #2, in which the Aztecs led the Saints during two separate moments.

She lifted her body off the planet as if by Tesla's cold-gas thrusters and thrashed the ball, busting blocks and breaking floorboards.

The last point of the game? Jill.

She's the kind of girl you want as a friend, super nice, and don't want as an opponent.

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About this writer: Mike Ashcraft teaches journalism, Spanish and literature at the Lighthouse Christian Academy.