San Dieguito empties bench, settles for fourth place

By: TOM SHANAHAN - For The North County Times | Saturday, October 7, 2006 11:03 PM PDT ∞

LA JOLLA ---- San Dieguito Academy girls volleyball coach Dexter Harvey was happy with his team's three wins on Friday as the Mustangs won their pool in the sixth annual La Jolla High Beach City Invitational to advance to Saturday's Gold Division championship bracket.

He continued to be impressed on Saturday when the Mustangs, ranked ninth in the San Diego Section, defeated Valencia in the first round and La Jolla in the quarterfinals. But once Harvey's team lost to Vista Murrieta in the semifinals Saturday afternoon, setting up a third-place match with rival Bishop's in the evening, the veteran coach decided to turn the best-of-three match into a version an NFL exhibition game.

Harvey played everyone on his roster as the Mustangs fell to Bishop's 25-20, 25-13 to settle for fourth place. He explained an upcoming match with Bishop's, a Coastal South League rival, in two weeks is more important to his Coastal North League team than a tournament's third-place trophy.

"We played well in the tournament Friday and Saturday, but we were out of gas after playing a very, very good Vista Murrieta team," Harvey said. "We play Bishop's in a couple of weeks, and if you know (Bishop's coach) Tod Mattox, he'll have every rotation dissected before we get there. So I said, 'Let's not show them anything. We'll let everyone play and in a couple of weeks, we'll play them heads up when we're not tired.' "

Vista Murrieta went on to win the title of the 32-team tournament, defeating Anaheim Esperanza in the final between Southern Section schools.

San Dieguito was led by 5-foot-10 senior Leanne Stennett, who announced Friday an oral commitment to play for Azusa Pacific University.

"We weren't expecting that," Stennett said of Harvey emptying the bench, "but he knows what he's doing and we trust he's doing the right thing. It was good for a lot of girls to get some playing time."

Stennett said the Mustangs entered the weekend focused on improving their passing and defense.

"We came out Saturday with a lot of energy and we stepped up our passing and defense," she said. "There were a lot of good teams in this tournament and a lot of girls got some good experience playing at this level."

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