Big Valley Christian volleyball sweeps Faith Christian, claims first NorCal title
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- Big Valley Christian swept Faith Christian to win first NorCal volleyball title.
- Senior Faye Dobson led offense with 25 kills; Karlie Powell delivered eight aces.
- Coach Michelle Camoirano emphasized team culture, practice tweaks and loud home support.
Through tears and smiles, Big Valley Christian volleyball players and coaches were speechless as they posed for pictures on the gym floor flooded with confetti.
They accomplished their goal.
Some probably went through the checklist in their head: League title? Check. Sac-Joaquin Section title? Check. CIF Northern California Regional title? Check.
They squeezed everything they could out of the 2025 season.
“We are pumped,” senior setter Ella Alavezos said. “It’s an amazing feeling, the team is stoked. With seven seniors that since freshman year have all been working hard to get to this point, we finally made it with the teamwork of our team, coaches, everybody.”
On Tuesday, the Lions finished the best season in school history by sweeping Faith Christian, 25-16, 25-20, 25-10, combining strong offense and dominant serving to win their 11th straight match to end the season. Big Valley Christian finishes the 2025 campaign 31-9; it’s just the second time in 20 seasons the Lions finishing with 31 wins.
The Division VI Northern California Regional championship is the first volleyball regional title in school history.
“(It’s) pretty surreal. Pretty amazing,” first-year varsity head coach Michelle Camoirano said as she held the NorCal title plaque. “I don’t even know what to say. Wow.”
Tuesday’s match was a rematch of the Division VI Sac-Joaquin Section championship played at Cosumnes River College just 10 days earlier. The Lions claimed a blue banner in four sets, but Camoirano felt their first meeting wasn’t Big Valley’s best effort. They lost the first set before sweeping the next three to claim the title.
The teams were the top two seeds in the section and NorCal playoffs.
In their second meeting, the top-seeded Lions and the No. 2 Faith Christian Lions battled to start the first set. A back-and-forth affair, both teams traded runs. Big Valley trailed 8-4, then scored four unanswered.
Faith Christian scored five straight and Big Valley scored five unanswered points of its own, tying it at 13. After that, Big Valley took control of the set, finishing on a 12-3 run powered by strong serving from senior Karlie Powell and powerful offensive attacks from California kills leader Faye Dobson, who recorded kills for eight of Big Valley’s final 12 points. She finished with a match-high 25 kills.
“It’s such a great feeling when the setter is feeding you the right ball to where you can put it in smart places,” said Dobson, who recorded her 1,000th career kill in the NorCal semifinals against Etna. “Honestly, it was just an awesome set all around. Our defense was good, our serve receive was good, our hitting was good, and our setting was amazing.”
Another nip-and-tuck set followed as neither team took more than a three-point lead early. Faith Christian went on a 6-3 run to take a 16-11 lead, forcing a Big Valley timeout. A pair of timely Big Valley runs flipped the set around as a 5-1 run capped by two straight Powell kills and another 5-1 run powered by back-to-back Dobson kills each forced Faith Christian timeouts.
Big Valley took a 21-18 lead and outscored Faith Christian 4-2 to end the set and take a 2-0 match lead.
“That second set, we took kind of a dive, but our character and our drive to get through it, I’m so proud,” Alavezos said. “We worked hard to execute and get points back. We focused on (saying) it’s not just a hard kill, a smart set, it was just we need a point.”
In Game 3, Big Valley took an early 7-2 lead before Faith Christian cut it to a one-point game. After that point, Big Valley took control of the final frame, going on a 12-1 extended run that included back-to-back aces from senior Annika Rumble, two straight Dobson kills and three straight Powell aces. At one point during the stretch, Big Valley scored nine straight points, taking a 19-7 lead and coasting to a match-clinching victory.
Powell finished with a game-high eight aces and Alavezos had 33 assists and 11 digs.
“We came out with fire, we came out with the urge and the fight to beat this team,” Dobson said. “This team is super special to me because I was the only freshman on varsity last year and this team just took me under their wing and they feel like my volleyball family. Being able to experience this with them is such a great feeling. It’s really sad to see them go, but I’m so happy we ended on such a good note.”
Big Valley Christian played 40 matches this season, a long campaign that can often get tedious. Camoirano says she found ways to keep things loose and keep the players on their toes. During practice warm-ups and stretching, coach put music on a speaker in the gym.
Before the section title match, they played crowd noise to emulate the big-game atmosphere. But Tuesday’s match was more electric than their first matchup, in a smaller gym with a rowdier student section, the environment was everything they wanted for a NorCal final.
“A lot of these kids have been here since kindergarten, so to be here in our home and get to host was really cool, it was really intense,” Camoirano said. “This noise was not a bad thing for us. This was us. This was our people and that hypes them up. This group plays and this group wins when they’re having fun and really loud. Loud and fun is their game and that’s what this was.”
The end of the 2025 season marks the end of the high school careers of seven Big Valley seniors, who never thought they would be the ones to compile the best season in school history. They finished with an 8-2 Mother Lode League record, and wins over bigger schools like Enochs, Oakdale, Beyer, Merced and Gregori.
“Hard work and work ethic is what got us here, I can’t put it into words, it’s awesome,” Alavezos said. “We’ve been dreaming of it, we’ve been working for it. We didn’t really realize this would be the team to make it all the way through. We thought we might have fallen short earlier, but God had a different plan and the hard work paid off in the end.”
CIF Northern California Regional Final Scores
Division IV
No. 3 Immanuel 3, No. 1 Ripon Christian 2: The Knights played their second straight five-set match Tuesday in the D-IV regional championship. After a hard fought battle, Ripon Christian fell 25-19, 11-25, 25-17, 22-25, 15-11. It finishes the season with a 24-12 overall record, marking six straight seasons of over 20 wins.
Division V
No. 3 Hilmar 3, No. 4 Colusa 1: Hilmar claimed back-to-back Northern California Regional championships after defeating Colusa 25-23, 25-17, 23-25, 25-23 Friday night. The Yellowjackets will compete in their second straight state championship match Friday at 4 p.m. at Santiago Canyon College in Orange. They take on the Southern California champion in four-seed Elsinore.
