Sequoia volleyball: Nor Cal champs!

The Nor Cal crown marks a couple of amazing firsts for Sequoia. It’s the first Nor Cal championship for the Redwood City public school in any sport. In fact, it’s the first time any team in school history has played in a Nor Cal final. It is also the first championship trophy the Ravens have won this season, after tying for fourth place in the Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division standings, and advancing only to the Central Coast Section Division I semifinals.

“It was a good trophy, though,” Sequoia head coach Bryant Tran said. “It was a good trophy to win.”

And it isn’t just that the Ravens ran the table in the Nor Cal tournament, it’s how they did it. Tuesday’s five-set dramatics were nothing new. The team has gone the five-set distance in each of their three wins in the tournament, rallying back from deficits of 2 games to 1 each time to do it.

“I think we just work really, really hard, and most games we expect a dogfight,” Sequoia senior libero Joslin Fiel said. “We don’t expect it to ever be handed to us. We just fight, and if five sets is what we go to, it’s what we go to, and we’re prepared to fight.”

The hard work and fight culminated in quite a celebration, as sophomore outside hitter Kiera Winters took a swing off the left side that Lincoln initially picked up, but couldn’t control. Winters put so much torque on her 17th match kill, she didn’t even see championship point hit the floor.

“I was like: ‘I need to take the biggest swing I’ve ever taken,’” Winters said. “Because I just wanted it so bad. And I just knew how close we were to winning, and I just had to do that for my team.”

As Winters unwound from her shot, she only saw freshman middle blocker Yanely Rodriguez go into celebration mode.

“I just saw her on the floor screaming and I just knew and I was just happy,” Winters said.

Sequoia wasn’t the only team on the floor that has been five-set battle tested in the Nor Cal tourney. Lincoln (36-9) was coming off a four-set win over No. 11 Foothill-Palo Cedro in the semifinals, but previously topped No. 7 Riordan-SF in the quarterfinals.

After dropping the first set, the Lady Mustangs looked poised to push it to at least four sets. Lincoln came out swinging in Game 2, recording 19 team kills, led with nine kills by outside hitter Katherine Chan. The senior went on to total 17 match kills, while sophomore outside hitter Ana Garcia Cruz scored a match-high 21 kills, junior middle Kylah Kaywood had 10 kills and two blocks, and senior opposite Chloe Lam totaled eight kills.

“We’ve got weapons all around,” Lincoln head coach Vince Tang said. “What happened tonight is we didn’t pass well enough. So, we couldn’t really showcase our offense. Credit to Sequoia, they served really tough. Kind of got us off of our game. But, yeah, our girls have been doing it all season long.”

Sequoia’s defense was up for the challenge, and changed up its game plan in Game 3.

“We did shift our defense, which helped a lot,” Fiel said. “I think something our team is able to do really well is just shift on command, and make changes when they’re needed to be made. And I think that after the second set we did that really well.”

The change served Sequoia well. The Ravens rallied back from an early 7-4 deficit, and swung ahead 10-9 on one of Lincoln’s 22 field errors in the match. But a late 22-19 lead didn’t hold up, as the Mustangs tied it 22-all, and broke a 23-23 tie on a loud solo block by Kaywood through the middle.

The Ravens, however, have been gaming for five-set marathons for the past week.

“They just believe in themselves,” Tran said, “and I believe in them. I think having this crowd behind them — because we usually don’t get this kind of crowd during the season — so, having this crowd here makes them feel that. Everybody believes in them.”

Sequoia outside hitter Katalina Tuipulotu took over Game 4, rifling eight of her 17 kills in the set, to go with two service aces. It was the senior’s blast down the sideline that gave the Ravens an 11-10 lead in the middle-game. She then took on the Mustangs’ block time and again down the stretch, before scorching a clean kill to end it, to force a winner-take-all Game 5.

“She’s just such an important part of our team,” Winters said. “We honestly wouldn’t be here without her.”

In the race-to-15 final set, it was the Ravens’ patented clutch defense that won the day.

After the Ravens leveraged an 8-6 lead when Lincoln was whistled for a lift violation, Sequoia held at 9-7 when junior setter Jayda McGlennon chased down a rangy but wayward back-row dig by a lungeing Tuipulotu, whose pass careened toward the front row and looked ticketed to sail out of bounds by passing the right post. McGlennon, though, raced over and did a tightrope walk by not only bumping the ball back in play, but putting right in the middle of the front row for sophomore Samantha McMurtry (15 kills and three blocks) to spike it down.

“I literally had in my head the score of the game and how much this means to our team,” McGlennon said. “And I’m like: ‘No matter what it takes, I’m getting this ball!’”

Rodriguez forced championship point with a spirited spike off an overpass. with the kill sparking quite a celebration in its own right. Winters then stepped up to seal the deal.

“How much this means to this program, this school, we have fought so hard to get here and get to this point,” McGlennon said. “We’re making history, as a lot of people know. And it just means so much — everything.”

With the win, Sequoia advances to the CIF Division III state championship final, to be played Saturday at Santiago Canyon College in Orange. The Ravens will take on Southern California champion Our Lady of Peace-San Diego at 1:30 p.m.