No. 1 Pitman cruises past overmatched Oakland Tech in NorCal volleyball playoff opener

It’s bad enough having to get off a bus and hustle into a gymnasium to play a volleyball match with minimal warmup time.

It’s twice as bad when the team you’re playing is Pitman High School.

The Pride, seeded No. 1 in the Northern California bracket of the CIF Division I state championship tournament, had little trouble with Oakland Tech in a 25-11, 25-14, 25-6 first-round victory Tuesday.

Tech had trouble getting out of Oakland because of traffic snarls caused by Monday’s protests of the Ferguson, Mo., grand jury decision. According to Bulldogs coach Rosemary Whisenton, it took nearly three hours for the bus to make it 40 miles to the Altamont Pass.

Surely, the lengthy trip and lack of proper preparation was partly to blame for Oakland Tech’s shaky start. But it had more to do with Pitman’s superiority.

“As soon as we walked in here and saw No. 7 warming up, I could tell we were intimidated,” Whisenton said, referring to Lindsey Vander Weide, the two-time Central California Conference MVP who has signed to play at Oregon next year. “But we got to see what it’s like to play at this level. You can tell them, but sometimes they have to see it for themselves.”

Oakland Tech seemed thrilled to score in double figures in two of the three games. And when the Bulldogs recorded their first block against All-American Vander Weide (12 kills), they began celebrating and forgot to finish the point.

“We didn’t know anything about them, so we came in here ready to play our best game,” said Vander Weide, who posed for pictures with the Oakland Tech players following the game.

The Pride (42-1) will need to be at its best Saturday when it hosts No. 5 San Ramon Valley (35-6) at 7 p.m. The Wolves breezed to a 25-19, 25-17, 25-18 win over Pleasant Grove, which extended Pitman to five grueling sets in last week’s Sac-Joaquin Section championship match at UC Davis.

“That (Pleasant Grove) score is kind of intimidating,” said senior Maddy Halteman, the CCC Setter of the Year who will play at Fresno State next year. “It’s kind of stressful because everyone is after us, and because of that, we have to work that much harder and practice that much harder.”

Coach Kristen Pontes-Christian will make sure of that.

“The next couple of days, we’re going to have to work on controlling our side, playing all-out defense and quicker offense,” said Pontes-Christian, who called timeout to chew out her team a little when the Pride slacked off and trailed 4-1 in Game 2.

“I don’t want them to get comfortable. I know they’re strong athletically, but I want them to be strong-willed and strong-minded. So much of volleyball is intensity, as well as talent. But it’s that intensity that pushed us through (last week).”

This story was originally published November 25, 2014 at 10:35 PM with the headline "No. 1 Pitman cruises past overmatched Oakland Tech in NorCal volleyball playoff opener."