Panthers pick up a key win

Burlingame has already split with M-A and the Scots — falling to the Bears, but beating Carlmont. A win over Aragon would give the Panthers a decided edge. Not only for a CCS berth, but it keeps them in the hunt for the Bay Division championship.

So when Burlingame lost head coach Lawrence Ngai to an ejection early in the third set, it was a turning point in the match — would the Panthers crater or would they use the ejection to fuel a victory?

Burlingame chose the latter. The Panthers rallied to win that third set and ultimately beat the Dons in five sets — 19-25, 25-18, 25-19, 22-25, 15-8, remaining a game behind division-leading M-A.

“Lot of banter back and forth between our coach and the referee and I guess they didn’t like what they heard,” said Burlingame’s Fabian Falconett, who finished with a match-high 16 kills.

“He was fighting for us, so we wanted to fight for him.”

The ejection, however, really had very little impact on a match that was nip-and-tuck the whole way. While Burlingame (4-1 PAL Bay, 14-4 overall) managed to win that third game to take a 2-1 set lead, it didn’t propel the Panthers to a rousing win in Game 4.

Instead, Aragon (1-4, 9-10) won five of the final seven points of the fourth game to send it to a deciding fifth set and a race to 15 points.

And it appeared all the momentum was on the Dons’ side as they opened the deciding fifth set by winning the first four points on kills, with Jasper Caffo punctuating the quick burst with a block for a kill.

But then Falconett got hot. The Dons committed a trio of errors, and back-to-back kills from Falconett on the left pin tied the game at 5-all. An Aragon error on serve receive, followed by a block for a point from Burlingame’s Cole Ng gave the Panthers a 7-5 lead.

An Aragon passing error and two more kills from Falconett — who had six in the final set — pushed the Panthers’ lead to 12-7.

Two of Falconett’s four aces gave the Panthers match point and they clinched the win on a Dons’ hitting error.

“Near the end, we started to play more consistently,” Falconett said.

Early on, however, Burlingame struggled with Aragon’s strong blocking game, especially in the middle. But as the match wore on, Burlingame started to find more success on the outsides.

“There middles were a little late getting to the pins,” Falconett said.

The match got off a sloppy start as both teams seemed tight and the first six points of the opening game were scored on errors. Ailesh Chauhan finally put one down to put the Dons up 4-3 and it sparked an 8-2 run that allowed Aragon to open up a 12-6 lead, one the Dons mostly maintained the rest of the way. Aragon got back-to-back blocks for kills to wrap up the Game 1 victory.

Burlingame settled down in the second, cutting down its errors and getting more consistent on the attack. A Cameron Ngai block for a kill put Aragon up 7-6, but the Panthers responded with kills from three players and two Dons’ errors to open up an 11-7 advantage.

Aragon rallied back, however, winning eight of the next 11 points to tie the game at 15-all. A Tadem Szeto roof put the Dons up 16-15.

But a kill from Owen Carroll, who finished with nine for the game, tied the game at 16 and jumpstarted a 10-2 run to close out the game, with Wang serving up an ace to tie the match at one set apiece.

Burlingame trailed early in Game 3, 12-7, but the Panthers won six straight points, including three straight kills from Falconett to take a 13-12 lead. The teams went back and forth, with Aragon holding a 19-18 lead after a serving error from the Panthers.

It would be their as the Panthers ended the game on a 7-0 run, with Hakes serving out the set.

Game 4 was just like the previous three, with neither team managing to get much separation, but with the Dons holding on to send the match to the fifth set.

“Every team in the Bay Division is battling,” said Aragon head coach Ame Halaufia. “They were just able to string together more points.”