Playing tough opponents is something that is customary for the Burroughs High boys’ volleyball program.
Having moved down to Division 3 of the CIF Southern Section playoffs this season, the hope was that perhaps that might change.
But the Bears ran into a difficult challenge that was too much to overcome Saturday as Burroughs was swept 25-17, 25-16, 25-21 by visiting St. Margaret’s of San Juan Capistrano in a second-round match.
“They were just more polished than we were. The consistency factor was there. We had a couple of runs of a few errors in a row and they never did, so that created little margins that just expanded,” Burroughs coach Joel Brinton said.
St. Margaret’s (29-4) was led by 6-foot-7 outside hitter Reed Wainwright, who is committed to Stanford University, and is coached by by Bob Yoder, the former head coach at USC and Ohio State.
Burroughs (25-10) had short leads in the first and second games, but never put the Tartans in distress.
“Before the third game, we only gave up one point before we got the ball back. When you don’t give up streaks, it puts a lot of pressure on the other team,” Yoder said. “They finally got a few streaks on us in the third game. We’ve haven’t been a good defensive team, but we got a few digs tonight that we haven’t been making. They (Burroughs) ran a really fast offense, so I didn’t get as many blocks as I’d like to see.”
The Bears did fight back from a 19-15 deficit in the third and final game to tie things at 20. Benji Ly, Charlie Gerard and Caiden Shrode each had a kill in the rally effort.
But St. Margaret’s got a big block at the net by Wainwright that made it 22-20.
A kill by St. Margaret’s Miles Eaton finished things off.
