Everything looked good and felt good for the Burroughs High boys’ volleyball team Tuesday when the Bears opened the CIF Southern Section Division 2 playoffs against Yorba Linda.
Burroughs got off to a good start and seemed to be in control. But the end result wasn’t to be as the visiting Mustangs earned a 20-25, 25-20, 17-25, 25-18, 15-12 win.
“Obviously we had a successful year, but obviously we’re bummed that we don’t have practice tomorrow,” Burroughs coach Joel Brinton said. “The sting the bitterness right now is at a max level. We have to get over that. We can look back and be happy with the growth of the group. The goal is always to find the best version of ourselves and we did, but it just didn’t show up tonight.”
In the fifth and final game, Yorba Linda rallied from a 10-8 deficit stun Burroughs on its home court.
An ace deep in the right corner by Yorba Linda freshman RJ Bollin and a kill from middle blocker Evan Waddell were enough to put the finishes touches on Burroughs’ season.
The Pacific League champion Bears (22-8) won the first game with little difficulty.
Noah Duffield, Burroughs 6-foot-7 junior star who has committed to Stanford University, had six kills in the first game. He finished the match with 16.
“They were fantastic,” Yorba Linda coach Daniel Hart said of Burroughs. “It was a grudge match the whole time and we ended up playing well enough to find a way to win. We have a lot of team chemistry, a lot of young guys. A lot of people didn’t know that we have zero seniors on the court.”
Yorba Linda (24-6) regrouped behind sophomore Waddell and the Bollin triplets, Thomas, Willem and RJ.
The Mustangs broke a deadlock at 12 in the second game behind a pair of kills from Ethan Yeh.
Burroughs struggled to get Duffield involved in the attack. Waddell had a block and a kill to end the second game.
The Bears came back in the third game thanks to a strong effort from Marco Santiago-Dorn, who had four kills in the early in the game. Burroughs went up 22-15 and cruised to win 25-17.
Burroughs was tied at 12 in the fourth game, until a kill by Thomas Bollin put Yorba Linda ahead. Burroughs remained close, but could not overcome the deficit. The fourth game was ultimately finished by a kill from RJ Bollin.
