Ripon avenges losses to Sonora to win first volleyball section title since 2016
The Ripon High and Sonora High volleyball programs are very familiar with each other.
The Indians (22-10) and Wildcats (26-6) matched up eight times prior to Saturday afternoon’s Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV championship since 2013. Sonora won them all.
The Wildcats knocked Ripon out of the Division IV playoffs last season in the semifinals and this year beat Ripon in five sets in its season opener.
If there was ever a time for the Indians to get their first win over Sonora since 2012, Saturday’s final was certainly it.
Second seed Ripon battled from behind in nearly every set but put together runs to take leads when it mattered most, beating the Division IV top seed Sonora at Modesto Junior College 26-24, 23-25, 26-24, 25-20 to secure its first blue banner since 2016.
“This is an almost iconic game in that we started (the season) with them and then we ended with them,” said first-year head coach Casey Kresge. “Knowing that they got that W the first round, we knew we had to prove something and prove who we were.”
No one on this year’s team knew what it was like to experience a section championship match. Though they had playoff experience, they came up one match shy of the final last season.
“We talked about who was nervous, who was excited,” Kresge said. “We were all excited and had a little bit of nerves, and I told them, that’s OK, that’s normal. It’s what you do with those nerves. Are you gonna play harder or are you gonna play timid? And they all wanted to play harder.”
The Indians defense keyed in on Sonora’s outside hitter Gracie Bearden, producing multiple blocks to remain within striking distance in the first three sets.
Trailing 20-15 in the first, a block on Bearden capped a three-point run that got them back within striking distance. After a 24-24 tie, Ripon closed out the first set with back-to-back points.
“We came together as a team and all the middle blockers were like, ‘Hey, this is it, you either close that block or it’s hitting the ground and we go home,’” middle Makenzie Loechler siad. “Grit and determination pushed us to close the blocks and get our feet there and jump as high as we could to get those blocks in. That really changed the game for us.”
They fell into an early 6-0 hole in the second but battled back again. They would tie the set twice late at 21-21 and 23-23, but Sonora held on to even the match.
As the game went on, the offense came alive. Five players finished with at least five kills, led by Avery McKiernan and Kylee Fullmer, who had eight kills each.
“My favorite noise that I hear when I set the ball is the other middle going, ‘Oh no,’ just realizing that I completely faked her out,” said setter Kaya Whittaker, who finished with 21 assists. “It’s so great to know that anyone I do set can put the ball down, so it’s not like I have to consistently give it to one person. It just gives me a lot of options and it makes it a lot of fun for me to play with the ball, moving it around to whoever I want.”
The third set went back and forth with neither side gaining more than a three-point advantage.
Trailing 23-22 late, Ripon went on its first run of the set, outscoring Sonora 4-1 to put it away.
With momentum on their side, they opened up their first five-point lead of the match. Sonora was able to cut it to a one-point game, but Ripon scored four unanswered to end the match.
“It was huge,” said Whittaker of winning the tight third set. “For it to be that close and finally get that last kill, it was huge because we could take that energy, all that cheering, and just push it into the next set, which I think is what allowed us to get that lead in the first half.”
Ripon advances to the CIF State Northern California Regional Championships and will learn its opponent Sunday afternoon.
Led by its five seniors, the Indians pulled off an upset over the division’s top team, extending its win streak to eight games.
“I definitely felt there were high expectations and I was nervous knowing I’m a senior and I gotta step it up this game and, you know, really finish this,” Loechler said. “When it finally all came together, all the seniors on the team were like, ‘We did it. We finally did it.’”
This story was originally published November 6, 2022 at 11:23 AM.
