Carlmont battles past Branham to claim CCS boys’ volleyball crown

No. 5-seed Carlmont (36-6) made history Saturday with a 25-17, 26-24, 20-25, 25-20 victory over No. 2 Branham-San Jose in the CCS Division I championship finals. It marks not only the first CCS title in program history for the Scots, it is the first CCS championship ever for a Peninsula Athletic League team in the 27-year history of the boys’ volleyball postseason.

“It’s so huge just to see that level of activity,” Carlmont head coach Dan Nelson said of his team’s win total. “I think it’s starting to be noticed. PAL is kind of not recognized for having high-level volleyball play. But they put us on the map today. And that number of wins and matches is really showing up statewide.”

The Scots played a sharp and tactical brand of volleyball from the outset. They never trailed in Game 1, turning up the volume with an 8-6 lead when junior setter Kevin Tomita scorched a second-touch kill through the middle to spark a 6-0 Carlmont run. Tomita had three kills and a block in the opening set, and finished with a match-high five blocks to go with 19 assists.

“He’s the leader,” Nelson said. “He’s definitely the leader out on the court. It’s great to have a setter that’s a leader, versus a hitter, because he’s orchestrating the whole show.”

Tomita’s eye-of-the-hurricane calm helped relax the Scots despite the intimidating power of Branham 6-7 freshman opposite Nick Mego. Carlmont held Mego to five match kills.

“We were mostly scared of their right side that’s around 6-8 — and he’s a freshman, which is very scary,” Tomita said. “I think we countered him very well with our blocking, and we dug him very well.”

Carlmont countered with its own power attack in junior outside hitter Sean Murphy. While Murphy doesn’t benefit from the same intimidating stature as Mego and Branham’s rock-solid senior outside hitter Georgios Argiris, the Scots’ star certainly had the most powerful swing working in Saturday’s match.

Murphy worked overtime with a swing percentage of .173 to generate a match-high 21 kills. Through Carlmont’s four victories in the CCS tournament — including wins over No. 12 Menlo-Atherton, No. 4 Lynbrook, and No. 1 Bellarmine — Murphy totaled 74 kills. The Scots have now won 15 straight matches dating back to an April 1 loss to Bellarmine in a two-set tournament final in Santa Cruz.

“After our loss to Bellarmine at the Harbor tournament — that was our last loss — everything else was smooth sailing from there,” Murphy said. “And when CCS was coming up, I just kicked into overdrive. ... When it came down to CCS, I wanted my revenge for (getting knocked out in the semifinals) last year and I played out of my frickin’ mind.”

Murphy’s clutch play showed up big time in a critical Game 2 battle. The junior sharpshooter helped send the set into extra-points with eight kills, the eighth breaking a 22-22 tie with a scrappy, two-handed slap to exact the sideline after a prolonged rally.

But it was junior opposite Eric Fadeyev that scored the Game 2 winner. Fadeyev had 10 match kills, five of them coming in the second set, including a laser off the left pin to force set point at 25-24. Then he crushed a kill through the middle to end it, and celebrated with a wild roundhouse punch through the air as the Scots took a 2-sets-to-0 lead.

“Volleyball is not an individual sport,” Fadeyev said. “It’s for your teammates. And knowing that you show up for yourself and for the rest of the team means the world. It’s the best feeling.”

After dropping Game 3, the Scots leveraged a early lead in Game 4 with libero Will Won (26 digs) and defensive specialist Simon Hua (12 digs) anchoring the back row. Murphy and Tomita each recorded early blocks in the set, and, with Carlmont leading 20-18, junior middle Eli Nathan notched his second block of the game to spark a 5-2 Scots finish.

“The middles blocking today was huge,” Nelson said. “Just our blocking overall. When you see Branham in warm-up, they were absolutely bouncing everything. And it’s intimidating when you go against a team that is delivering hitting like that in warm-ups. And I spoke to the guys before, and I said: ‘It’s going to come down to blocking and defense for us.’ And you could tell by the amount of digs, the amount of blocks that we had, it definitely showed.”

Fittingly, Murphy finished off championship point with a bolt off the left side.

An emotional celebration and trophy presentation ensued, with the Scots understanding full well their place in history.

“I’ve been playing volleyball my whole life,” Fadeyev said. “And knowing my name is going to be along my other teammates on the Carlmont wall for the rest of its history means a lot.”

Carlmont isn’t finished though. The Scots open the CIF Northern California tournament Tuesday hosting Nevada Union (30-6) at 6 p.m.

Beyond the state tournament, the Scots — with a mostly junior team that plays club volleyball year-round with Red Rock Volleyball Club in Redwood City, are looking onward and upward in 2024.

“We have one more year, we’re doing it again,” Fadeyev said. “We’re coming back harder, build off of this to propel ourselves into the future.”

Tomita added: “Next year we’re hoping to win the (CCS) Open Division.”