Daisies, Lions Rule in SPC Volleyball

By Mike Waters / Contributor

Defending their respective top seeds, Hockaday and St. Mark’s ensured both SPC volleyball titles remained right at home.

Hockaday earned its second straight crown, and 11th overall, by sweeping Houston St. John’s on Saturday, 25-19, 25-16, 25-23.

Olivia Wayne, who is verbally committed to Duke, hammered 19 kills, including eight in the title-clinching third set, while adding 12 digs and five blocks.

The Daisies (24-19) swept all 11 of their SPC matches, including regular season and playoffs. Earlier this season, Wayne became the second Hockaday player to surpass 1,000 career kills after Avery Jackson, who is now a freshman at Stanford.

Campbell Trubey dished out 19 assists in the title match, with eight coming in the final set. Siena Ebert and Mila Haffar had 15 and 12 digs, respectively. Ay-Vi Ho added 13 assists.

Hockaday gained experience while playing in a number of early-season tournaments against some of the best teams in the state and nationally.

“I do my best to front-load our schedule and expose our players to very high level volleyball early,” said first-year Hockaday head coach Allison Camp. “I believe it’s crucial to the growth of my players and their long-term volleyball career to put them in front of the best possible teams I can find — which means playing in some of the best tournaments in the country. This allows our team to bond and really find out who we are.”

Meanwhile, St. Mark’s needed five thrilling sets to put away Houston Episcopal for its 14th boys title, 25-23, 26-24, 22-25, 21-25, 15-12, avenging a heartbreaking defeat from last season.

“A two-day marathon,” explained Jacob Lobdell, an excited yet exhausted St. Mark’s middle blocker, who slammed down a number of critical kills in the title match.

The Lions (19-3) played 15 sets in just over 24 hours — winning a pair of five-set Friday matches over Fort Worth Country Day and Houston Awty International to advance.

“Everybody just stepped up,” said St. Mark’s coach Darren Teicher. “Consistency was the biggest key for us in this tournament. I wasn’t sure after the five-set matches how much we had left. But I am so very proud of these guys.”

In the decisive fifth set, St. Mark’s never trailed and jumped out to an 11-6 advantage, the largest lead for either team in the match. After five straight points by the Knights, a Lobdell kill forged a 13-11 Lions lead. At match point, an Episcopal return sailed wide.

“We remember what it felt like losing to them last year in five sets,” Lobdell said. “We were determined not to repeat that. We left it all out on the floor. We felt we were the better team. We made some mistakes out there, but in the end we won, and that is all that counts.”

St. Mark’s won the first two sets, with the second ending on a Charlie Gordy kill followed by an Ethan Yau ace. The Lions held a 20-17 cushion in the third set before the Knights rallied, then Episcopal also took used a late service run to win the fourth.

“Going into the final set, I just told our kids it was up to us make our own fate,” Teicher said. “And we did just that.”