Summit Shasta volleyball on the rise

Led by a mostly non-senior roster, including junior outside hitter Elizabeth Huynh and sophomore opposite hitter Kristen Huddleston — who rank third and seventh, respectively in service aces in the Central Coast Section — the Black Bears had one other historic footnote in taking runner-up at Saturday’s Del Mar Tournament, matching the program record with their 20th overall win of the season.

“It comes down to team,” Summit Shasta head coach Gil Gilberstadt said. “It’s a dynamic team. It’s the way they carry themselves. Each one of them has really good composure where, they’re confident, they focus on what needs to be done, and they know how to get that point.”

Gilbersadt is in his first season at Summit Shasta, taking over for a team that was already on the rise. The Black Bears — now in just their fifth season for the relatively new charter school in Daly City — advanced to the Central Coast Section Division V playoffs in each of the past two years, including last season when they became the first team in program history to reach the 20-win plateau.

“By the look of it the girls were pretty strong,” Gilberstadt said. “And this year I think they’re a little stronger.”

In his first turn as a varsity head coach, Gilberstadt is serious about building a volleyball program. He is a longtime club coach, now in his third year at Red Rock Volleyball Club in Redwood City. He has previously coached club ball at the Polaris Volleyball Club in Redwood City, the SF Elite Volleyball Club in South San Francisco, and Quake City Volleyball in San Francisco.

He has also coached at several San Mateo County high schools, recently running the freshman team at Carlmont when Chris Crader was running the varsity program there.

When Crader departed prior to this season to take the varsity head coaching job at Palo Alto High School, Gilberstadt applied for the Carlmont vacancy. The job went to Michael Lapuz. But a few weeks later, Gilberstadt — who resides in South San Francisco — was notified of the open position at Summit Shasta.

“Then someone emailed me and said they need a varsity coach at Summit Shasta,” Gilberstadt said. “And I’m nearby … so I was like, I’ll take that. I’ll start a program over there.”

The Black Bears had a tall order in Gilberstadt’s first week at the helm. In the second match of the year, Summit Shasta hosted Crystal Springs Uplands in a non-league pairing. Last season, Summit earned the program’s first CCS playoff victory ever in the opening round of the Division V playoff. On the losing end was Crystal Springs.

Summit Shasta persevered for the win in this year’s rematch, going to five sets to do so. With this, the team started a trend of fifth-set dominance. The Black Bears have gone to five sets four different times this season. They have won them all.

The most recent came last Thursday in hosting More-San Jose in Private School Athletic League match. Summit is undefeated in league play this year, but holds a slight one-game lead over second-place Nueva School. The decisive Game 5 saw More take a 9-8 lead in the race to 15 points. Then Huddleston and junior setter Sydnie Fong got cooking with the right-side attack.

“We had the support from all our friends in the crowd because it was home game,” Huddleston said. “So we didn’t want to disappoint them.”

The sophomore opposite totaled a team-high 16 kills, including the game-winner. Fong put up a back set toward the right pin with Huddleston connecting, looking to hit angle and tooling the block to finish off the win.

“We are definitely the type that don’t like to lose,” Huddleston said. “So, we had to hype each other up and make sure we made the best decisions possible.”

In traveling to San Jose for Saturday’s Del Mar Tournament, the Black Bears reeled off three straight wins against host Del Mar, Half Moon Bay and Monta Vista-Cupertino to improve their winning streak to 18 matches, and advance to the tournament championship match.

It took the Division I team from Mountain View to end Summit Shasta’s winning streak in the title match. With three regular-season matches remaining, the Black Bears will look to start a new winning streak Thursday when they travel to Nueva School and, if they do, will clinch no less than a share of their second straight PSAL North Division championship.