Ripon sweeps Central Catholic in section volleyball opener

It’s been a pretty heady two weeks around the Ripon High School volleyball program, and no one can explain the reasons better than coach Adrienne Beltrami.

“I just had a baby 13 days ago,” said Beltrami, who named her baby girl Quinn. “My kids are doing great, I have an awesome coaching staff. This is my fourth year here, and I feel like these kids have changed the culture to what my vision was. I couldn’t be more proud.”

And since the Indians aren’t about to stop that kind of momentum, they opened the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV playoffs with a 25-16, 25-20, 25-13 victory over Central Catholic on Tuesday.

Ripon (10-10), the No. 6 seed, travels to No. 3 Calaveras for Thursday’s second-round match. Central Catholic, which finished in second place in its first go-around in the Valley Oak League, finished 16-10.

The Indians have had their share of adversity this season, which could be partly attributed to a difficult schedule but more likely to their youth. Ripon has four sophomores in its rotation, and they all seemed to have left 10th grade behind at the right moment.

“Everything has come together for this team in the last month – everything we’ve been working on,” Beltrami said. “Sometimes that’s a lot better than starting off that way and trying to keep it going. We had to work through a lot, and it makes this so much more enjoyable.”

While Ripon celebrated, the Raiders could be forgiven for thinking about what might have been. For years, they’ve competed in the postseason as a Division V school, winning a section title in 1997.

But with the move to the Valley Oak League, primarily a Division III conference, Central Catholic was bumped accordingly to Division IV.

“If we were in the division where we should be playing, I could make a good guess as to what we would have done,” coach Robert Murr said. “I think we would have won the section this year.

“We have a good team that plays hard, but trying to play in D-IV ... in this section, D-IV is as good as any division all the way up through D-II.”

Despite the bump, Murr insists his team wasn’t about to back down from the challenge, and it did come out playing well and grabbed an 8-2 lead in the first set.

The Raiders, who gave up a lot of height at the net, stayed back and played a fundamental placement game, trying to keep Ripon moving and out of rhythm.

“A lot of it had to do with our size,” Murr said. “We started out strong, but it looked like we slowed down a little bit and backed down a hair. I could not find the right way to get that hair back up.”

But as soon as the Indians found their groove, their triple threat of hitters – sophomores Breana Barrios and Samantha McCreath (who played all over the court) and senior Karisa Carlson – quickly took over the action by staying patient and anticipating the right moment to go for the kill.

“We’ve been working on staying calm and waiting for the moment,” Beltrami said. “Sometimes you just have to place the ball and wait for your moment to cream it. We did that well tonight because there were times we just had to get the ball back over.”

The Indians took command in the first set with a 10-point run, surged late to claim the second set after a 16-16 tie, then opened a 10-0 lead in the third set.

And with that, they’ll be looking to carry momentum into Thursday.

“We’re ready for Thursday,” Beltrami said. “We’re going to have to travel and being in Calaveras will be interesting, but we travel well and we do well in those situations.”

This story was originally published November 11, 2014 at 10:13 PM with the headline "Ripon sweeps Central Catholic in section volleyball opener."