BCHS falls to Immanuel in area's first boys volleyball playoff game
The Fourth time was the charm on Thursday night and that was not good news for the Bakersfield Christian boys volleyball team.
The BCHS Eagles, which had defeated the visiting Reedley-Immanuel Eagles three times this season, couldn’t finish them off when it mattered most, losing in the Central Section Division III quarterfinals, 19-25, 25-23, 26-24, 25-19 at St. John’s Lutheran School.
“I think we got a little tight and we missed too many serves at crucial times which gave them a 3-point run, a 4-point run and then it’s hard to come back,” Bakersfield Christian coach James Gibson said. “It’s a game of momentum, it’s a game of energy and when the energy gets zapped and taken away from you it’s hard to come back.”
No. 11 Immanuel (17-28), which upset No. 6 Fresno Hoover in its playoff opener on Tuesday, entered Thursday’s match having lost all eight sets to Bakersfield Christian this season, including a sweep at BCHS two weeks ago.
Third-seeded BCHS made it nine straight sets when they won the opener on Thursday, and led 21-18 in set No. 2 before Immanuel rallied in a match played at an alternate site to make room for a theater production titled “Bright Star.”
Bakersfield Christian trailed early in the first set, but caught fire midway through on the strength of Chase Furtado and Jack Doss. The two combined for five kills and a block during an 8-1 run that gave BCHS a 16-11 lead. Doss closed out the set with back-to-back kills. He finished with 12.
That script flipped in the second set when Bakersfield Christian scored the first four points and led 13-7 before Immanuel responded. After eventually catching BCHS at 18, Bakersfield Christian’s Matthew Fan had a kill and two aces to push his team’s lead to 21-18. Fan finished with a game-high 17 kills and six aces.
But Immanuel followed with seven of the next nine points, evening the match with consecutive kills by Micah Horn. Horn had a team-high 13 kills and three blocks.
Winning the team’s first set in 10 tries this season seemed to energize Immanuel.
Immanuel continued to build momentum in holding on to win the third set and followed with a strong finish to close out the match.
“(After winning the second set) they came a little more aggressive, maybe the ball bounced the right way on a couple of nice saves that they had and if you’re not ready for that, then it falls (in for a point),” Gibson said. “You have to continue to play through the whistle until the end of the point and they did that a little bit better, and those points mean a lot when you’re trying to close the gap in a game. It keeps that 5-point lead ahead, and that’s comforting. When you’re five ahead, you can play a little more relaxed.
“Overall, you have to show up ready to play. That’s the thing I like about volleyball. On any given day, if you execute better and make fewer mistakes than the other team, your chances of winning are huge. That’s true in a lot of sports, but really in volleyball.”
Despite the loss, which closes out the first full season of boys volleyball for a Kern County team, Gibson is excited for the future and proud of his team’s development.
“This is their first full season of boys volleyball and they’ve done phenomenal,” Gibson said. “We played a lot of coastal (schools) and the growth in this team is huge. I’m excited about seeing the future of boys volleyball. I think buzz is out around the school. There are some other athletes that might come out, so it’s really exciting for boys volleyball in Kern County, and I’m excited to be part of that.”
