Eagles to defend championship vs Knights

Grace Christian Academy and Mt. Carmel School took separate routes to the finals of the varsity division of the 2008-2009 Coalition of Private Schools Volleyball League after pulling off contrasting wins in the semifinals yesterday at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium.

The Eagles landed to the championship match via an easy 25-16, 25-12 victory over the Seventh Day Adventist with the semis match ending in less than an hour.

The defending champion Eagles and SDA spent the rest of the day watching the neck-and-neck battle between the MCS Knights and Marianas Baptists Academy for the second finals ticket.

The MBA Stormz recovered from a 19-21 deficit to escape with a 25-23 triumph in the opening set.

The second set was a tighter match with the Knights needing two extra points to eke out a 27-25 victory and force a deciding third set.

Again, Mt. Carmel had a chance to pull away leading at 20-16, but MBA worked its way back into the second set and even took the lead, 23-21.

Successive errors from MBA allowed Mt. Carmel to bounce back. The Knights moved a point away from claiming the second set when Richard Park’s serve fell short and hit he net. MCS wrapped up the set, 27-25, when the Charlie Jo’s kill went off the backline.

The thrilling third set was one for the books with neither team willing to give up with the finals berth on the line.

Noelle Calvo scored back-to-back aces for a 2-0 lead, but Gonzalo Samson answered with his own aces, putting MBA to 5-2 lead.

The next few plays saw several rallies with the usual loud crowd on a couple of occasions turning silent as it waited who was going to wink and drop the ball.

When there were no rallies, the crowd were treated to a show by the Knights and Storms frontliners squaring off at the net.

Manning the net for MBA were Park, Samson, and Jo, who scored several kills in their quarterfinals win over Saipan International School-Blue, but was not that efficient in the semis match as he was challenged by the Knights trio of Min Joo Jung, Peter Matagolai, and Jake Igitol.

The seesaw battle in the third set was tied last at 11-all until the Storms committed three errors and Igitol made the game-winning kill.

Jo’s return went wide to the MCS’ right baseline putting the Knights in the lead. Another MBA error with Jenny Sasamoto’s return hitting the net moved MCS within two points of stealing the match.

Noelle Calvo served for the third time and the Storms failed to return the ball after three touches.

Then Igitol delivered the killer punch, which he had been doing all day long, frustrating the Stormz frontliners.

Calvo served again, Sasamoto returned it with the ball going to the MCS’ right sideline, and Jung received and set up Igitol in the middle. Igitol leaped and went for a powerful kill, which landed inside the backline with Park and Jo on the last line of defense.

The ball dropped in the middle of Park and Jo, who were at lost whose going to hit the ball back. Unfortunately, none of them did, awarding the last finals ticket to the Knights.

The Knights will return to the finals after a four-year absence. Last season, MCS placed only third and in 2006, it won in the semifinals, but had its finals slot forfeited due to a violation of league rules.

The Eagles will be gunning for the fifth straight title today when they duel the Knights.

The title game will be played at 4:30pm at the Ada Gym, while the consolation match between SDA and MBA is set for 3:30pm.