Southwest boys volleyball denies Belen payback, earns return trip to state tourney
Like it did a year ago, tickets sold out very quickly when the stage was set for the regional final between the Southwest and Belen Jesuit boys volleyball teams.
Last year it was the Eagles who hosted as the No. 1 seed and came through with a four set victory, eventually going on to win the state title.
This time it was Belen, with its stellar 23-5 record, who had the top spot. Thus one by one, they piled into the Wolverines’ gymnasium on Tuesday night, in the hopes of exacting a little revenge and punching only the second-ever trip to the state tournament for the program and first since 2019.
But the folks from Southwest had much different plans.
The Eagles showed just exactly why they are the defending state champions as they dominated from start to finish , blowing through the Wolverines to a 3-0 (25-18, 25-15, 25-16) victory.
“The mindset was simple, come in here tonight to this crowded gym and let everybody see what we do,” said outside hitter Juanmarco Diaz, the Miami Herald’s Player of the Year last season, who led the way with 14 kills. “Just like practice, we came out and ran our tempos, kept our composure, blocked out the crowd and all the hype and did our thing. We’re definitely super excited about the opportunity to repeat as state champs and we’re going to go up there and do our best to bring it home.”
Southwest moved its record to 22-7 and will head back upstate to Polk State Community College in Winter Haven to join seven other teams and attempt to win a third state title for the program and second straight.
The Eagles will be the No. 5 seed and are matched up against another Miami-Dade County team, No. 4 Mater Lakes Academy, that after the Bears won a five-set thriller over Cypress Bay. The two teams will meet in a quarterfinal on Friday at 1 p.m.
Miami High, which defeated Southwest to win the GMAC championship last month, swept Hialeah in three sets and will enter the state tournament as the No. 1 seed, taking on No. 8 Cardinal Gibbons on Friday at 10 a.m. A win by both the Stingarees and Eagles would set up a GMAC rematch in Saturday’s semifinals with a whole lot more on the line. Winter Park will face Loxahatchee Seminole Ridge at 4 and Winter Park Lake Howell will face Tampa Bay HEAT at 7 in the other two quarterfinals on Friday.
Belen took a 5-2 lead in the first set before the Eagles went on a 7-1 to go up 9-6. Southwest gradually pulled away from there to cruise to the first set win. The Eagles, with their own strong contingent of fans all decked out in purple cheering them on, then jumped all over the Wolverines in the second set, jumping out to a 10-3 lead and again, coasting to the easy win to go up 2-0.
Those that showed up hoping or anticipating some drama and maybe a five-set marathon didn’t get anything of the sort as the Eagles again jumped out to an early lead in the third set and never looked back.
“We came in here locked in tonight and ready to compete at a high level,” said senior Jamel Toste who transferred over from TERRA last summer and was not a part of last year’s championship season. “I think we just had a good attitude, stayed composed and didn’t let the crowd get to us. I wasn’t here last year so this will be my first shot at this. I came over here wanting to put another banner up for my teammates, not for myself.”
Co-head coaches Joshua Perez and Mauricio Diaz were certainly pleased with what they saw but also did what most coaches do when they are in the middle of trying to defend a state title – stay in the moment.
“There were no state championships to be won here tonight,” Diaz said. “And there will be no state championships to be won when we go up there Friday. Around here, it’s one match at a time and we never talk or try and think about that. We had our bumps in the road throughout this past season but it’s always okay because it was always about how we were going to fix it. We have one game on Friday and if all goes well, then we’ll get ready for the next one after that.”
Perez said the formula for Tuesday night’s successful trip to Belen was simple.
“It’s all about preparation,” Perez said. “Our practices are usually harder than any games we play in so it was just a matter of coming in here tonight, staying disciplined and performing at the level we know how to play at..The kids were fired up and ready to go.”
On the other end of the spectrum, it was a quiet and solemn Belen locker room. The Wolverines arrived Tuesday night thinking their strong and noisy fan base would be the catalyst to help them avenge last year’s defeat.
“Southwest is a great team, they’ve got a lot of great players and came in here tonight and did their part,” Belen coach Freideman Sifontes said. “But at the same time I don’t think we did a good job of handling our emotions, especially in the first set and then showing those emotions. After we dropped that first set, it became a struggle for us and you could see their (SW) confidence growing at the same time.
“After that, it was kind of a snowball effect, we would make one mistake and then compound that into several other mistakes. I told the boys not to hang their heads and to be proud of the season we had. There were a lot of other teams that would’ve loved to have still been playing tonight and we were one of them.”
OTHER SCORES
Miami High d. Hialeah 25-13, 25-18, 25-13; Mater Lakes d. Cypress Bay 25-27, 26-24, 17-25, 28-26, 20-18; Cardinal Gibbons d. Boca Raton 24-26, 23-25, 25-19, 25-16, 15-8.
This story was originally published May 15, 2024 at 7:35 AM.