Eagles lose heartbreaker
Lancaster falls in ve sets in CIF quarter nal
LANCASTER — Tears trickled down the eyes of every player on the Lancaster roster.
As the players exited the team room, students, parents and faculty were there waiting to console them and congratulate them on a great season.
Neither team deserved to lose, but as Eagles head coach Alfredo Garcia put it, “somebody has to win, and somebody has to lose.”
Unfortunately, for Lancaster, its magical run in the playoffs ended with a quarterfinal loss to Riverside-Poly, 25-20, 21-25, 20-25, 25-23, 17-15, Thursday evening in the Division 6 playoffs at Lancaster High School.
“The growth of these kids is what’s most special,” Garcia said. “I’m very proud of them. I love this group of kids.”
Kendall Esparza had a career-high 38 kills for the Eagles, which made it to the quarterfinals for the first time in school history. However, fatigue began to set in for Esparza in the fifth set as the Bears began to solve the riddle at the right time.
“In the fifth set I think we got a little too comfortable, and we became one-dimensional,” Esparza said. “I was getting tired. Taking that many swings takes a toll on you.”
Matthew Quintero was the perfect complement to Esparza as the outside hitter finished with 19 kills. Setter Jonathan Luna had five kills and two blocks.
After the Eagles (24-13-3) mounted a huge comeback in the fourth set, only to lose, the match was sent into a deciding fifth set.
Lancaster took its comeback momentum from the fourth set into the fifth and jumped out to an 8-3 lead. Following three consecutive kills by Esparza, the Eagles grabbed a 12-8 lead.
That’s when things began to unravel for the Eagles. Poly rolled off five consecutive points to take a 13-12 lead. Lancaster responded with a kill by Josh Arcamo followed by an ace by Esparza
giving the Eagles match point.
But the Bears rallied by winning four of the next five points as an error by the Eagles closed the match.
“I’ve been in this program since COVID and it’s great to see how it has developed. It’s been really fun to watch” Esparza said. “I’m so proud of this team and the effort we gave. It’s just a sad way to go out.”
After dropping the first set, Lancaster rallied by winning the next two sending the match into the fourth set.
The Eagles struggled in the beginning of the set and Poly (22-11) continued to stretch its lead. The Bears built a 2112 lead and were seemingly cruising, but that’s when Lancaster woke up.
Trailing 22-13, the Eagles rallied, putting a huge scare in Poly. Lancaster went on the biggest run of the match, 8-0, to trim the lead to 22-21. Another kill by Esparza cut the lead to 24-23, but a kill by the Bears evened the match, 2-2.
“That was a great opportunity to learn how deep you dig a hole, you still have it in your power to behave like a champion. No matter how huge the deficit, we continued to fight,” Garcia said. “In life that’s what they will need to do. They continued to believe.”
After dropping the first set, Lancaster responded in the second set. The set went back and forth, however, the Eagles created separation late in the set to even the match.
“That’s a great team over there. We knew coming in that it wouldn’t be easy. We had to be ready for everything. I thought we played really hard,” Luna said. “We fought for every point. In the fourth set we knew we had to start off strong. We came out ready, but we made a few mistakes. This is a tough way to go out as a senior. We wanted to go all the way. We worked really hard for this.” Quintero agreed. “Props to them (Poly). We just had the emotion of winning. We just got ahead of ourselves. We played amazingly. I thought it was one of our best matches of the season,” Quintero said. “We had a lot of mistakes on our part, and they took advantage. We let the game get to our head. Next year will be amazing.”