El Dorado boys volleyball sweeps No. 1 seed Dos Pueblos in CIF-SS quarterfinals
PLACENTIA — El Dorado boys volleyball coach Brit Brown stressed the importance of being a well-rounded team.
The versatility and depth of the Golden Hawks was on full display as they swept No. 1 seed Dos Pueblos, 25-18, 25-19, 25-19, on Wednesday night in the CIF-SS Division 5 quarterfinals.
El Dorado (14-19) will travel to Santa Barbara to play Bishop Diego in the semifinals Saturday. Bishop Diego came back to beat Brea Olinda in five sets Wednesday.
Brown believes her team is playing its best volleyball when it matters most.
"I think we have a lot of talent and I think we work really well together," Brown said. "I know we didn’t play a ton of our guys tonight, but a lot of our guys are interchangeable. Everyone always gets the focus on the starters, but we got guys and guys and guys on this team. We have a deep bench and we just stress all the skills, all the time. You just gotta be a well-rounded volleyball player."
Michael Lovett had a team-high 11 kills and two blocks for El Dorado and Ian Dang had 10 kills and two aces.
"Obviously, they are our big scorers and we rely on them for the numbers, but beyond that, they’re just great leaders," Brown said. "The guys look up to them. They see what they can do and they want to be like them. The younger guys look up to them. They just exude confidence on the court, and it really helps us pull together in tough times. They’re amazing."
The Golden Hawks collected six aces overall, including Warner Raymond's ace for match point.
El Dorado also received key contributions from Ryan Patel (seven kills), Evan Chin (five kills), Harish Iyer (four kills) and Exodus Ponce (four blocks).
Dos Pueblos took a 12-9 lead in the second set as middle blocker Caleb Damron began to assert his presence at the net.
The Golden Hawks quickly rallied and worked their plan of attack to take control of the match.
"We saw what their tendencies were and how we would counter that, and then we focused on our own game." Brown said. "We just focused on playing fast, being creative, and controlling the flow of the game."
Brown, who guided El Dorado to a CIF-SS finals appearance in the 2023 season, hopes this postseason gets a storybook ending.
"It really would be pretty sweet (to win CIF) with this team, especially with these seniors," Brown said. "I actually lost a coach their freshman year. So I took them on as the Frosh/Soph team as well. So it’d be really kind of a nice bookend, really satisfying, to take the team that I coached as freshmen all the way to finals and win it all."
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