Ripon Christian earns its second straight section title after sweeping Vacaville Christian
Ripon Christian senior Emily Van Groningen walked around carrying the Sac-Joaquin Section title banner on Saturday afternoon while she greeted friends, family and members of the school’s student section.
It was now her turn to celebrate the championship as a senior and the team’s leader, after having won it in 2019.
The Knights played in a hard-fought game against Vacaville Christian in the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division V Volleyball Championship finals match, but prevailed, sweeping the Falcons, 25-20, 25-22, 25-18.
“This is my senior season and we want to end with a bang,” Van Groningen said. “So getting the section championship is just it’s the best feeling ever.”
Ripon Christian’s biggest lead in the first two sets was just five points, but they scored when the time was right. After two close sets, the Knights opened the game up in the third to close it out.
“In all three sets, we made some good service runs right in the middle of the set that allowed us to pull ahead just enough that we could breathe a little bit,” said coach Kayla Koostra. “It settled us to be able to push them to the end of the game.”
Van Groningen scored a lot of those points. She served up back-to-back kills and a block in the second set to contribute to a 11-2 run that put the Knights ahead 22-15.
Vacaville Christian had an offensive weapon of its own in middle blocker Kirra Martin. Shutting down a hitter like Martin is almost impossible, but Koostra had a game plan for slowing her down.
“We talked a lot about just making sure that our middles and our blockers are tracking her,” Koostra said. “Then it was really just about pursuit and getting them out of system. When we were serving tough ... it allowed for their passes to be off the net and then their middle was out of the equation.”
Senior setter Jenna Hofman led the Knights with 31 assists while Van Groningen led the team with 14 kills. Ellie Dyt, Hofman and Van Groningen finished with eight digs apiece.
