Huntington Beach girls’ volleyball ousted from regionals by Palos Verdes

As the Huntington Beach girls’ volleyball team reached the last four in the CIF State Southern California Regional Division I bracket, the margin for error grew thin.

The Oilers had split sets with each of the teams left in the field, and they couldn’t overcome slow starts to the first and third sets on Saturday against an opponent with a dynamic offensive duo.

Stanford-bound outside hitter Kaci Demaria had 24 kills to lead visiting Palos Verdes past top-seeded Huntington Beach 25-23, 25-18, 25-23 in a regional semifinal match.

Mallory LaBreche, a UCLA beach commit, distributed 24 assists to go with a dozen kills and two total blocks for Palos Verdes (27-9), which swept Santa Margarita (25-14) on Tuesday to advance to its third consecutive state final. The Sea Kings will attempt to win their first state championship when they face Pleasanton Foothill (30-10) on Friday at 6:30 p.m. at Santiago Canyon College.

“We’ve played for a while, and we just have a really good connection,” said LaBreche, whose twin sister Molly — the Sea Kings’ libero — has committed to LSU for beach volleyball. “We work on it in practice. We all care so much. We want to win, so I feel like when you all have that drive and everyone just wants it, then you play so much better and cohesive as a team.”

Huntington Beach (32-8), which shared the Sunset League title with Los Alamitos, surrendered eight of the first 10 points of the contest before rallying to take a 22-21 lead on a block by the tandem of Taylor Ponchak and Charlie Lucky-Mitchell.

A double-contact violation evened the score at 22-all, and a kill by Olivia Hirsch to clinch the first set put the hosts on their heels.

Palos Verdes rode a 9-4 run to close out the second set in comfortable fashion. Huntington Beach trailed 16-9 in the third set, but the Oilers proved tougher to close out, due in large part to the scrambling defensive work of Princeton-bound libero Olivia Foye.

“Knowing that I played my best on my last day here is really important to me, just to look back one day and look at the fact that I put everything out on the court,” said Foye, who had 19 digs and three service aces. “That’s how I ended my high school career.”

Huntington Beach took a 22-20 lead on a kill by Ellie Esko, but DeMaria delivered kills for the final five points for Palos Verdes.

“They played great defense, and their setter did a really nice job,” Huntington Beach coach Craig Pazanti said of Palos Verdes. “Give them some credit, too, for making us look like that. I think the worst the block has affected us was against Los Al the second time when we lost in five, but we hadn’t lost in three, except for Mater Dei, the entire season, so give them some credit for taking care of business.

“I thought we had chances to win the first set, for sure, and we were ahead 22-20 in the third set and couldn’t close it out. … It kind of came down to what rotation were we going to be in, what rotation were they going to be in? Kaci’s in the back row, we were scoring points. When she was in the front row, they were scoring points.”

Ellie Esko had a team-high 13 kills, two aces and two block assists for Huntington Beach. Addison Williams had 11 kills and 12 digs, Ponchak produced 10 kills and three block assists, and Lucky-Mitchell had five block assists. Amika Swanson chipped in with three kills.

“It’s definitely a very difficult thing to process,” an emotional Foye said of her last game. “I don’t think you can really prepare yourself for it. It’s just a lot of sadness. Not only is it an amazing program, but the people are what made it, and all the coaching staff and my teammates.”

CIF State girls’ volleyball championships schedule

At Santiago Canyon College

Friday, Nov. 22

Division V: Immanuel (24-21) vs. Bell Gardens (24-18), 4 p.m.

Division I: Pleasanton Foothill (30-10) vs. Palos Verdes (27-9), 6:30 p.m.

Saturday, Nov. 23

Division IV: Hilmar (30-9) vs. South Pasadena (17-16), 11 a.m.

Division III: Monta Vista (26-10) vs. Central Valley Christian (37-9), 1:30 p.m.

Division II: San Ramon Valley (30-9) vs. Bakersfield Centennial (30-10), 4 p.m.

Open Division: Archbishop Mitty (29-6) vs. Cathedral Catholic (45-3), 6:30 p.m.