CARMEL VALLEY ---- Perhaps the members of Cathedral Catholic High's girls volleyball team have a future selling timeshares, or could give actress Kyra Sedgwick a run for her money. The Dons proved Tuesday night that above all else, they are closers.
A suffocating rally was all they needed to turn a close second game into a victory, and they carried that momentum forward for an easy win in the third game, sweeping Hemet, 25-9, 25-18, 25-14 in the first round of the CIF State Division III tournament.
Top-seeded Cathedral Catholic (32-4) closed out the eighth-seeded Bulldogs (22-6) with relative ease and secured a home date with Pasadena Poly in Saturday's quarterfinals.
"Once we realized how back and forth that second game was, we knew we had to focus a little more," Dons senior middle blocked Morgan Cormier said. "After winning the first game so easily, we kind of took a step back and didn't think we had to work as hard, but they were doing a great job -- we re-focused and said we needed to finish it out and get some momentum for the third game."
Cathedral won its sixth consecutive San Diego Section D-III title last weekend, but it took the Dons four games to beat La Jolla in that match. Their slip in the third game left them seeking perfection, and they seemed to achieve that Tuesday.
They never trailed in the first game, and didn't let Hemet score on consecutive serves. Cormier, Kristen Witous and Tatiana Durr, Cathedral's trio of six-foot net players, were nearly impossible to hit around and punctuated numerous points with thunderous kills.
Game 2 saw Hemet lead, 7-6, 8-7 and 9-8, and the Bulldogs, whose weekend included hoisting a second straight Southern Section Division IV-A trophy, played well enough to be tied at 17. Cathedral collected itself during a timeout, though, and reeled off eight of nine points, including two Aubrey Valencia aces and three kills between Durr and Cormier, to take control.
That momentum continued into the third game, when Cathedral turned a 4-4 tie into a runaway. The Dons closed out the match with a Cormier kill that she drilled from the middle of the court just inside the left line.
Cathedral coach Kelly Drobeck said her team has a perfectionist mindset, and having lost in the state title game last season after having won it the two years before, each and every player knows what the end game is.
"They have a goal in mind - they want to win the state title," Drobeck said. "Our goal is to get better with every single match, so hopefully they'll be peaking at the right time."
Cormier and Witous led the way Tuesday with 10 kills each, and Durr added eight. Jaclyn Williamson had with 16 assists, Lauren Miller had 15 and Taryn Maloy totaled 10 digs.
Hemet got four kills each from Briana Williams and Shelbi Skinner.
"They're big and they're talented," Hemet coach Jewel Robinson said of Cathedral. "It was kind of like our team in our division (in the Southern Section) -- it was like, 'Who are we going to stop?' They're all really good."
Tuesday marked Hemet's second consecutive exit in the first round of the state tournament. Last year, the Bulldogs lost to Canyon Crest Academy in the first round.
To close out the season with a loss in the first round of the state playoffs after having experienced the euphoria of a section championship just three days earlier was an odd feeling, Robinson admitted.
"It's bittersweet," she said.