Newport Harbor tops Mira Costa in four sets to capture CIF Division 1 championship

Newport Harbor players and coaches receive the CIF Division 1 championship trophy (Photos courtesy Mark Bausman, For OC Sports Zone).

Newport Harbor’s boys volleyball team accomplished what it set out to do Saturday night and took just four sets to do it. much to the delight of hundreds of Sailor fans who celebrated the crown.

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The top-seeded Sailors defeated Mira Costa to win the CIF Division 1 title at Cerritos College.

The scores were 25-20, 25-23, 15-25, 25-21.

Newport Harbor was led by Dayne Chalmers who had 20 kills and 11 digs and Caden Garrido who had 11 kills. Joe Karlous had 45 assists for the Sailors, who move on to the Southern California regionals next week.

“It means everything; we’ve been working countless hours for this, in club, in high school,” the UC Santa Barbara-bound Chalmers said. “It just means the world right now. These seniors, I’m so proud of them, how they stepped up and got the job done.”

Newport Harbor, inspired by a large turnout including many enthusiastic fans, had plenty of incentive after finishing as the runner-up to Corona del Mar last season.

“It factors a lot, because we had the experience, we’ve been here before and we knew what to do,” Chalmers said. “We know how to handle the crowd and it means that much more that we fell short (last year) and we were able to work harder and get back to where we wanted to be and do it the right way.”

Chalmers and the other Sailors headed straight to their families and fellow students after the awards ceremony to share the excitement of Newport Harbor’s fourth CIF title.

After Chalmers sealed the victory with a kill, he headed over to Karlous, who played a big role in his kills, to share the big moment.

“At that moment, it was the best thing in the world,” Chalmers said. “Joe and I are really close friends and we’ve been playing together since we were 12 and I love that kid.”

It is a sweet way for Head Coach Rocky Ciarelli go out. Ciarelli had already announced this would be his final season. He still has the Southern California regionals but the CIF title was his first at Newport, where he has been the coach for five years.

He has coached for 32 years in varsity volleyball, including 24 years at Huntington Beach and three years at Edison.

Ciarelli thought his players may have had added motivation knowing this is his last season but he was sure they were inspired by last year’s ending.

“Five of the kids started last year and I think at least 10 of the kids were on the team,” Ciarelli said. “They’re in the weight room, they word hard and there is no doubt they were thinking about that all the time. They wanted to get back here and win.”

Ciarelli said the Sailors’ serving was outstanding.

“We did a pretty good job with the game plan, especially the serving,” he said. “We kept it where we wanted it and kind of kept them off balance a little bit and I thought Joe did a good job of mixing it up. I thought our passing was pretty good.

“After that third game, they kind of stepped it up, I thought and we came back and stepped it up in the fourth game.”

Ben Coordt had 16 kills and Sam Collins 14 kills for Mira Costa. Ryan Schroeder added 14 digs and Jack Higgs had eight digs for Newport Harbor.

-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com