More Aragon magic

Thursday’s second-round victory 14-25, 25-22, 25-14, 17-25, 15-12 was No. 3-seed Aragon’s toughest test yet. The home-court advantage against No. 6 Carondelet-Concord (25-11), early on, seemed to be the Dons’ only advantage against a Cougars squad that played spectacular defense all night long.

“That’s something we take a lot of pride in, is our defense,” Carondelet head coach Jerry Mix said. “We’re not allowed to let a ball hit the floor.”

Sure, Aragon turned things around after dropping the opening set. Still, Carondelet didn’t once throughout the match give up a gimme shot. The Dons managed just a .216 hitting percentage throughout, but made up for it with senior setter Della Trimble diversifying the attack with four Dons scoring double-digit kills.

“I just kept in mind you just have to keep swinging,” said Amanda Patea, Aragon’s outside hitter who scored a match-high 16 kills.

And the Aragon defense progressed throughout, picking up its play as the match wore on, and picking up plenty of digs in the process. Junior libero Ally Thaw was a wonder with 29 digs, but she wasn’t the only one. Not by a long shot. Junior defensive specialist Megan Shen added 25 digs, junior DS Dylan Sherer had 17, Trimble had 15 and freshman DS Gabriella Oaks had 11.

Dropping the first set in the elimination match, with a scuffling serve receive the likes of which Aragon has not seen this season, was a key motivator.

“Honestly, we just reminded ourselves this would be our last game,” Thaw said. “We needed to fight. We didn’t want to lose to a team like this … and we knew we wanted it more than them.”

Turning to junior middle blocker Lolo Folau proved a pivotal move by head coach Kelsey Stiles. With the Dons’ depth of middles, Folau has seen limited playing time through the postseason. She didn’t see the court in Tuesday’s five-set win over Central Catholic, and sat through Game 1 Thursday.

Folau recorded just two match kills, but they both came at the outset of Game 2 on her first two plays to stake Aragon to its first multi-point lead of the night.

“She always brings energy, every game,” Stiles said. “Whether she steps on the floor or not, she brings huge energy. … She walked in the game and got two tip kills right away. The was a huge factor in winning that set.”

After the Dons upped their lead to 10-6 on an ace by Scherer, however, Carondelet went on a frightening 6-0 tear to swing into the lead 11-10, and did so with a varied attack of its own. From there, the lead tilted back and forth, with the score tied eight times in the set. And by the time it was tied 12-12, the Cougars had five kills from five different players. The deadlock continued till 22-22 when Cougars sophomore Kaitlyn McNiff tooled the block off the left side.

Patea answered back though by exploiting the sideline for a kill off the left side to spark a three-point Aragon run to close out the set.

Game 3 saw some massive drama as Carondelet, quite frankly got cheesed for four points in the pivotal early going. Two Cougars shots that clearly landed past the backline were ruled in. An attack by sophomore opposite Ava Mehrten was initially ruled a kill off a touch, but the call was overturned when it was ruled Aragon didn’t touch it. Then when Mix attempted to argue, he was slapped with a red card, awarding Aragon another point to give the Dons and early 9-3 lead.

The Dons won big in the third set; but Carondelet reciprocated by winning big in Game 4. After the third-set hijinks, it seemed only fair the match be decided in a winner-take-all Game 5 race to 15.

“We completely recovered (from Game 3),” Mix said.

And boy did the showdown make for a thrilling finale. Carondelet went up early 6-4 on left-side attack by McNiff. But Aragon started feeding the middle for sophomore Ella Sears, who went on to score four of her 11 match kills in the final set.

“It’s important when you’re up there to see your blockers,” Sears said. “That’s how you’re going to get your points.”

Sears took a quick set from Trimble and fired straight down to close the deficit to 6-5, then tooled through the middle to give the Dons a 7-6 lead.

Sears gave Aragon the lead twice more at 8-7 and 10-9, then followed the second of those kills with her only service ace of the match to up the lead to 11-9. Carondelet would never recover.

It was fitting, though, the final kill of the night was scored by outside hitter Lydia Manu. The junior injured her ankle Tuesday night, and returned in that one to give the Dons an emotional and tactical boost.

“She is so tough,” Sears said. “She is one of the toughest ones on the team.”

Thursday, Manu worked for 13 kills, including at match point by exacting the back line for what little precious floor Carondelet left open.

“I jumped up huge,” Patea said of her reaction to the match-winner. “Lydia is hurt, so that she was giving us that energy, she was awesome tonight.”

Aragon now advances the Division II Northern California semifinals. The Dons travels to No. 2-seeded Los Altos Saturday night for a 6 p.m. start.