SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Junior defensive specialist Chloe Johnson picked up a team-leading 17 digs while serving up two of her team's six aces while sophomore Sophia Palmeri hit an errorless 11-for-20 on the attack, but St. Francis could not maintain the momentum of its dominating third-set win, falling by scores of 20-25, 25-20, 14-25, 25-12, 15-8 to Oak Ridge in the varsity finale of Wednesday's Sierra Foothill League girls' volleyball tripleheader.
The Troubadours slip to 15-6 for the season and 3-2 in league. The Trojans improve to 12-4 overall and 4-1 in SFL play, moving into a tie with Folsom for second place behind undefeated Rocklin.
Sophomore Hailey Sutton posted team highs of 13 kills and 39 attacks for SF, sophomore Gilly Glikman added another eight kills, and senior Layla Alexander came off the bench to provide a 5-0-8 hitting line. Senior setter Nika Jafari posted 10 digs to trail behind Johnson in that category, with Sutton, Mana Jafari and Malia Fat each recording eight.
The Troubies pounded out 32 digs against nine errors in the first three sets, including a .375 clip (11-2-24) in the third. However, that offensive efficiency diminished to 12 kills and six errors combined (.136) in the fourth and fifth frames. Most of the decline in the attacking numbers came from struggles with the passing game – most notably the eight aces surrendered in that fourth set. Oak Ridge junior libero Londyn Welcher had six of those aces in a long serving run that turned an 8-6 SF edge to a commanding 18-8 Trojan lead.
The first two sets saw a combined 13 ties, including a 17-17 knot in the opener and a 16-16 impasse in the second. Sutton's kill and Sydney's first of two aces allowed St. Francis to separate to a 22-17 lead, with a pair of OR unforced errors helping that cause. Senior Gabrielle Rowe pounded out a kill for set point, with Malia Fat serving up an ace for the winner, giving the Troubies a 1-0 match lead. But the late charge belonged to the Trojans late in the second. Welcher served up back-to-back aces – as if providing a preview to her fourth-set mastery – to boost her team's tight 19-18 advantage into a 23-18 lead. Welcher served the next ball wide to briefly put the Troubies back on serve, Oak Ridge put the finishes touches down the stretch to even the match at 1-1.
Johnson displayed the bulk of her team-best floor defense in the third, while also serving up eight straight points as part of a 12-1 start. Save for a Kaya Charles tip to cut the deficit to 11-2, St. Francis trailed by double figures for the remainder of the set. Glikman had three kills and a solo stuff in the third, Rowe had two kills and a block assist while Sutton scored four early kills in the Troubies' best set of the match.
St. Francis continued to roll early in the fourth, with Johnson providing an ace, a kill out of the back row and a huge dig that resulted in Oak Ridge hitting into the antenna for an 8-6 Troubie lead. However, Camryn Reiser's kill by the left pin sent Welcher to the service line for 11 more Trojan points, ending with an 18-8 margin. Two of Welcher's six aces in the 12-0 run came with the aid of a friendly bounce off the tape, but her serving kept SF out of system throughout. Even an errant serve reception went straight to Elliott for a putback to make it 15-8. Elliott later served up two aces of her own to help OR easily take the fourth.
A Palmeri kill down the line and a Johnson ace gave SF a promising start to the fifth but the rest of the fifth largely belonged to Oak Ridge senior Avery Towne. She fired a shot through the Troubies' right-side block to equalize at 2-2, then teamed with Charles for a block against Sutton's shot from the 10-foot line for the lead. On the next play, Towne's zero block resulted in another SF attacking error, then later her huge kill along the right edge resulted in a side out and a 7-4 lead. Towne immediately followed by serving up six straight points, including two aces. Furthermore, her pancake dig prevented Sutton's tip from falling in for a kill, and set the stage for a block by Reiser and Madelyn Snyder as part of that run.
The OR-SF matchup was the first series meeting as league opponents but continued a storied history between the two programs. The Troubies and Trojans had ended each other's seasons eight times in the Sac-Joaquin Section postseason since 2007, including the 2008, 2012, 2018, 2019 and 2022 championship matches.
Prior to the varsity battle, St. Francis frosh and junior varsity each won its matches in straight sets. The Troubie frosh came back from deficits in each frame of a 26-24, 25-19 victory. They trailed as late as 16-13 in the first set before Lyla Faruzzi scored four kills in a long comeback stretch, ending with Marley Montecinos' kill to make it 23-19 for SF. Oak Ridge's Winter Green managed to fight off two match points with a free ball kill and an ace to tie the set at 24-24, but the Troubies answered with the final two. Liliana Negrete knocked down the winner and the 26th SF point.
Then the second set swung in both directions, with Delaney McGahan scoring three kills to craft an early 10-5 St. Francis lead.Then OR's Harlow Impey pounded out two kills from the right side as part of a comeback run to 10-10. A Green roll shot briefly boosted the Trojans to an 12-11 lead, only for Faruzzi's ace to put the Troubies back up by 13-12 two points later. The Troubies never trailed again after that point: Gaby Gonzalez had back-to-back aces and Montecinos tallied three kills in a 12-6 SF finish to the match.
The Troubie jayvees posted a 25-9, 25-12 sweep of the Trojans, with strong finishes more than overcoming slow starts in each set. Oak Ridge held a 6-4 lead after a Kelsey Frank/Cynthia Pop stuff block, but Lili Haddad had four kills and a block assist with Alli MacDonald as part of a 16-2 overall SF run the rest of the way. Sophomore setter Hiedi Vu served up three straight aces as part of eight unanswered in the finish.
St. Francis stumbled out of the gates in the second, hitting into a block and suffering two unforced errors as part of an initial 5-0 hole. Still, Layla Hernandez had kills on each end of the net and MacDonald posted a solo block on a joust as part of a comeback run to a 7-6 Troubie lead. The two teams shared three more ties, with a double-hit evening the proceedings at 9-9. Still, Oak Ridge's next serve fell harmlessly into the net, sending Sidney Palmeri to the service line with a 10-9 edge. SF rolled off six more points, with Palmeri serving three straight aces in the process. MacDonald had two more kills and Vu served her fourth and fifth aces of the match to seal up the victory.
The Troubie frosh improved to 16-3 with their win and evened their SFL mark to 3-3. The JV won their third straight to move to 18-1 overall and 6-0 in league play.
The two St. Francis sub-varsity squads compete in the Carmichael Invitational on Saturday, then will reunite with the Troubie varsity for continued league action at Davis on Monday. The CIVT, which the JV team won last year, takes place at the cavernous Capital Sports Center in McClellan Park all day on Saturday.
