Padres pound Leigh

"I felt well rested," said Wilson, after the Padres sat idle for a week after losing to Mitty in the West Catholic Athletic League playoffs.

The Padres, the No. 6 seed, will face either No. 3 Aptos or No. 14 Fremont of Sunnyvale at a time to be determined Saturday at Santa Clara High School.

That rest more than paid off for Wilson and the rest of the Padres. Wilson had 15 kills, three blocks for three more kills and seven service aces, including five in a row in Game 2.

Several times Wilson took a perfect set from setter Pat McKenna and blasted shots straight down. The Longhorns didn't have a prayer trying to dig those shots back up.

More importantly, however, was the way his play inspired his teammates. Chuck Wargo finished with 10 kills, Robbie Sacher added nine and Jake Kelly chipped in with seven of his own.

"Any time one player is playing better than usual, everyone else picks up on it," Wilson said.

Despite sweeping three games, the match was not especially easy for Serra (22-7). For the second match in a row, the Padres came out flat against a team they were expected to beat. Leigh (16-9) did a good job blocking early on and consistently dug up Serra attacks that had the Padres scratching their heads.

The Longhorns were definitely out-gunned against the Padres, but they just kept getting the ball back over the net and waited for a Serra error. In Game 1, Leigh had 12 kills while Serra committed nine errors.

The Longhorns led early, 6-3, and even though the Padres pulled even, Leigh refused to go away. With the Longhorns leading 18-16 after two consecutive Padre lift violations, Serra used two Leigh errors, a Wilson kill and Pierre Kohler ace to take a 20-18.

Up 22-20, Wilson iced the game for the Padres with two kills and a block for a kill on game-point to take the first game.

Game 2 was a repeat of the first game as the Longhorns appeared buoyed by their play in Game 1. Leigh eventually built a 14-10 lead before Wilson turned the match around with his service game. Using a heavy jump serve, he scored five consecutive points to take a 17-14 lead as the Longhorns could not deal with the top-spin heavy missiles Wilson was launching from the service line.

That fired up the rest of the Padres and though they needed 27 points to down the Longhorns, Serra started attacking aggressively.

"[Wilson] knew everyone was playing flat and he decided to take over," said Serra coach Brian Belding. "The energy level was so low. We need to get up. We're an emotional team."

Wilson said his team was initially playing uninspired

"We were playing pretty mediocre at first. But then we started playing better and morale picked up," Wilson said.

In Game 3, the Padres got kills from six different players, including reserves Chase Transeth and Brad Arbab. Wargo also came up big in the final game, accumulating five of his 10 kills.

But it was Wilson who did most of the damage, coming up with six more kills, including a tip over the Longhorns' block on match point.

Not only was Belding pleased with the win, he was happy with the way the Padres came to play after the slow start. He was glad that the Longhorns made his team work for the win as well.

"I'm glad Leigh came to play," Belding said. "I hate playing a first-round game and win in a walkover. We knew we were the superior team but had to play like that. We had to play our game.

"I think losing to Mitty was a good thing, considering the outcome didn't hurt us. In fact, it lit a fire under us. We need momentum going into Saturday."