Pitman draws NorCal’s top seed in D-I volleyball

Sac-Joaquin Section Division I volleyball champion Pitman was named Northern California’s No. 1 seed Sunday for the CIF state championship tournament, which begins Tuesday.

The Pride (41-1) will be host to No. 8 Oakland Tech, champion of the Oakland City Section, and three other Stanislaus District teams join Pitman in the tourney.

Two-time reigning D-IV section champ and No. 2 seed Sonora (33-5) opens against No. 7 Healdsburg (29-11), winner of the North Coast Section banner. Hilmar (38-9), the runner-up to Sonora the last two seasons, was seeded eighth and will take on No. 1 Notre Dame (32-6) in Belmont. Turlock Christian (20-17), which won its third consecutive D-VI section title last week over Merced’s Stone Ridge Christian, is seeded third and will play No. 6 Fall River (26-13) of McArthur. No. 5 Stone Ridge (25-10) travels to Redding to play Liberty Christian (20-7-1).

“I was hoping for a one or a two seed,” Pitman coach Kristen Pontes-Christian said. “So No. 1 is, obviously, amazing. But we’ve talked about taking it one game at a time; just because we’re playing an eight seed doesn’t mean anything is guaranteed. As the No. 1 seed, we have an even bigger target on our backs.”

Pitman defeated Pleasant Grove on Friday in a five-set thriller – 25-20, 22-25, 23-25, 25-15, 15-12 – for the first section team title in school history.

Aside from the Pride’s 25-11, 25-15 loss to Archbishop Mitty of San Jose – formerly the No. 1 team in the nation, according to MaxPreps.com – and a five-set win over Sonora in a nonleague affair that closed the regular season, no team has played Pitman tougher than Pleasant Grove.

And, as the CIF seeding committee would have it, the D-I champ and runner-up could meet again in the second round of NorCals. Fourth-seeded Pleasant Grove (30-8) faces No. 5 San Ramon Valley (34-6) on Tuesday in Elk Grove.

“I anticipated we might see them in the third round, but if we meet them in the second, I’m OK with it,” Pontes-Christian said. “We know what they run, and we understand what they want to do. Plus, with this team being half seniors, after we’ve seen a team once, the next time we play them we’re always so much more confident.”

Pitman is led by All-America outside hitter Lindsey Vander Weide, who has signed a national letter of intent to play at Oregon, and setter Maddy Halteman, who will play next year for Fresno State.

This story was originally published November 23, 2014 at 8:32 PM with the headline "Pitman draws NorCal’s top seed in D-I volleyball."