M-A takes command of PAL Bay Division volleyball standings

M-A (5-0 PAL Bay, 9-4 overall) earned a statement win Thursday night with a 25-12, 25-23, 19-25, 25-20 win over Burlingame in a battle for outright possession of first place. The two teams entered play tied atop the division standings. Now, the Bears are the last undefeated team in PAL Bay Division play.

“Tonight, for sure, a special performance,” M-A head coach Denny Falls said. “Really pulling out all the stops to play against Burlingame.”

Falls is in his first year at the helm of the M-A volleyball program. He takes over for Bryant Tran who, despite the Bears’ back-to-back fourth-place finishes, still led the team to great heights. M-A captured the Central Coast Section Division I championship in 2021 and finished runner-up in the tournament last year.

This year’s Bears squad is a different beast entirely. Fronted by junior Duru Ruacan — who played sparingly last season as a sophomore — M-A is more dynamic all the way around, faster and more explosive, than the last two seasons. Or maybe it’s just that the Bears were so geeked up on adrenaline going head to head with Burlingame for first-place bragging rights, they simply looked to be the best M-A team in recent memory.

Time will tell.

“That was a good time to get that confidence going into tonight, because this is one of the best teams in our league, and our area,” Falls said.

Falls was referring to the MaxPreps volleyball rankings, that last week had Burlingame (4-1, 11-4) ranked No. 7 in the CCS with M-A ranked No. 8. When the new rankings were announced Thursday prior to the two teams going head to head, they switched placed, with M-A moving up to No. 7 and Burlingame falling to No. 8.

M-A proved the rankings legit with a red-hot start, jumping all over Burlingame in the opening set.

After a fiery 3-0 lead back-to-back power kills from junior outside hitter Daniela Eline and junior opposite Sienna Morales, followed by a service ace from senior middle Aria Sokol, the Bears lead wire to wire in Game 1. Junior setter Meki Maile kept the ball moving around, with six different M-A players combining to total 12 team kills in the set. Maile and her setting counterpart Samantha Lin even had on kill apiece. But it was M-A’s 9-0 run in the middle game, with Line at the service line — where she fired back-to-back aces to make it 15-5 — that was the catalyst in a breezy Game 1 win.

“I have really good hitters who can transition really fast,” Maile said. “So, we can always run offense fast, in system.”

Maile has a connection with Burlingame’s top hitter, junior Ella Duong, as the two have played on the same team at Vision Volleyball Club in San Jose for the past five years. And while Duong was quiet in the opening set, she would wake up in Game 2 as the brawling rallies quickly became more contentious.

Duong would go on to share the match-high with 17 kills along with Ruacan of M-A.

“[Duong] is just a really good competitor,” Maile said. “She’s really fierce and just always attacking, no matter what.”

M-A was able to limit the damage with impressive sideline-to-sideline defense, with sharp play from Morales, Lin and King.

“They have some really amazing outside hitters,” Falls said, “players who have been starting for four years and three years in this league, so they’re veterans, to say the least. They can hit every square foot of the floor. So, that was the challenge of the night, that if they swung in one spot, they weren’t going to be swinging there again in terms of adjusting all night.”

Game 2 was a back-and-forth battle, one that saw Burlingame breaking an 18-18 tie with sneak-attack kill by junior setter Jillian Kiniris. The two teams would go point for point, with Burlingame holding the advantage all the way to 23-22 on a power block by junior middle Sophia Geminder. But the Bears regrouped and took advantage of a Burlingame net violation to tie it, with Ruacan tooling a left-side kills to force set point, and junior libero Kiela King following with an ace to close out the Game 2 win for M-A.

M-A opened Game 3 on a 6-0 run, but Burlingame responded, with Duong and Geminder heating up to lead the Panthers on a 9-2 run to close it to 13-11 M-A. Then with the score deadlocked 19-19, Burlingame closed it out on a 6-0 run of its own, with Geminer delivering a block to force set point, and sophomore Samantha Hollrah firing an ace.

With the M-A attack focusing through the middle in Game 3, however, Ruacan totaled just one kill in the set. When the Bears recalibrated in Game 4, the 5-9 outside hitter enjoyed her most prolific run of the night, totaling seven kills the closing set. Sokol, Morales and Eline all leant firepower as the Bears showcased their awesome scoring arsenal to the tune of 17 team kills in the set. Eline finished off the night with her second match ace.

Still in the first half of the league schedule, Burlingame — a team playing every game on the road this year due to new gym construction on its home campus — now falls into a second-place tie with Aragon. The Lady Dons (4-1, 11-9) moved up with a 24-26, 25-18, 25-20, 25-18 win at home over San Mateo. Aragon outside hitter Sophie Rubinstein recorded a match-high 29 kills for her second big performance of the week. The senior scored a career-high 31 kills Tuesday against Carlmont.