Cougars advance

QUARTZ HILL • On paper, you wouldn’t find two more evenly matched teams in the CIF-Southern Section Division III-AA quarterfinals than Granite Hills and Quartz Hill.

Both teams dropped only one set in their respective leagues. Both teams entered Saturday night’s match sporting hefty match winning streaks.

Both teams’ only loss on the season came to the same team (Serrano). And both teams had it easy in their first two matches of the tournament.

The only difference was Quartz Hill has been battle-tested in the past, making it to the semifinals last season, while Granite Hills entered uncharted waters, having made it to the quarterfinals for the first time in school history for girls volleyball.

Granite Hills made a little more history, rallying from a 2-1 deficit and pulling out an 18-25, 25-23, 14-25, 25-16, 16-14 victory over Quartz Hill in front of a hostile crowd at Quartz Hill High School.

“How do you put it into words? This was definitely the most competitive team we’ve played all season,” first-year head coach Fern Crenshaw said. “To come out on top, it just takes your breath away.”

With the victory, the Cougars (16-1) will travel to Brentwood on Tuesday in the semifinals.

“We’re just excited and amazed. We have never made it past the second round,” Granite Hills’ Carly Chandler said. “We just focused and tried to keep each other up. They’re a really good team. They fought as hard as we did.”

The match featured 23 ties and 24 lead changes. Victoria Iosefa gave the Rebels (17-2) fits the entire night, with her powerful serves and heavy-handed kills. She finished with a team-high 18 kills, six service aces and two blocks. Karilyn Betts and Hannah Fortin each had 11 kills and Fortin added three blocks.

“I have never played in that intense of a match,” Fortin said. “I’m very proud that we could pull together. We have one day to rest and then we’re back (to practice). I haven’t been this excited in a long time.”

Granite Hills dropped the first set and Quartz Hill had a 22-21 lead in the second. The Cougars rallied by winning four of the next five points to even the match.

The Cougars had a brief hiccup in the third set, which gave all the momentum back to the Rebels. The resiliency of Granite Hills showed in the fourth set as it dominated Quartz, including five kills by Betts and four from Iosefa, setting up the all-important fifth set.

Quartz Hill’s Kara Sherrard (29 kills) and her teammates seemed more fatigued entering the fifth set, while Granite Hills seemed the fresher of the two.

The Cougars led the entire fifth set and jumped out to a 10-4 lead. Quartz Hill rallied with a 4-0 run trimming the lead to 10-8. The Rebels eventually tied the score 14-14, but a kill by Fortin and a costly error by the Rebels, in which two players ran into each other off a serve from Chandler, sealed the match.

“This was one of the best matches I have ever played in. We just focused on each other, not them,” Betts said. “I’m extremely excited. There was a lot of pressure and I’m still shaking. It was a stressful match on and off the court.”

Granite Hills extended its winning streak to 13 matches. In the process, the Cougars ended Quartz Hill’s 17 match winning streak.