Golden Valley looks strong in win against Stone Ridge Christian

Scott Livesay seemed almost surprised with how well his Golden Valley High boys volleyball team played. The Cougars coach was a little apprehensive after a poor practice on Monday.

Golden Valley came out and played a spirited match, sweeping Stone Ridge Christian 25-15, 25-18, 25-21 on Tuesday evening at Cougar Arena in a battle of two of the top teams in Merced County.

“My team played well,” Livesay said. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen our players play with that fire. We kind of saw some of their emotion today. I thought we had a terrible practice yesterday. I think some of our guys have just been going through the motions. Some of our guys really stepped up today.”

It’s not like the Cougars came into the match against the Knights sleepwalking. Golden Valley is unbeaten in Central California Conference play at 8-0 and now stands 24-6 overall. Not bad at all for a first-year program.

The Cougars haven’t really been challenged in league play.

However, Livesay knows the playoffs will be different. He wants to see his team use their remaining few matches to get ready for the postseason.

“I don’t want us to care what the score says on the scoreboard,” Livesay said. “I don’t want us to slow down. We’re going to run into teams in the playoffs who are a little better than we are. We’re going to need to play with that fire and energy to win those matches.”

That’s why Tuesday’s match against Stone Ridge Christian (13-7) was a good postseason tuneup.

The Knights are in their second season of boys volleyball and advanced to the playoffs as a member of the Western Athletic Conference last year. SRC is 3-0 in the Central California Athletic Alliance this season.

“This is fantastic, I think for both teams,” said Knights coach Ken Shaw. “We love competition. We’ll go play the bigger schools. We want to play the type of competition hopefully we’ll see in the playoffs.”

The Knights had a tough time stopping the Golden Valley runs.

The Cougars took control of the first game with a 10-1 run to open up a 16-9 lead. A 6-0 run helped the Cougars erase a 15-14 deficit in game two. Golden Valley used another 10-1 run in the third game to sprint out to a 17-5 lead.

At one point in the third game, Shaw told his team, “We’re tapping it and they’re hitting it. That’s the scoring difference.”

Bryan Livesay led Golden Valley with 18 kills and 19 digs. Toukue Her orchestrated the offense with 33 assists to go a long with three blocks. Vong Her added 15 digs for GV.

“Our guys just have to go for it,” Shaw said. “Make a mistake trying too hard.”

Jonathan Collazo did his part for SRC, recording 15 kills. Nelson Machado finished with 15 assists and Bryce Louters recorded 14 digs.

This story was originally published April 11, 2017 at 9:19 PM with the headline "Golden Valley looks strong in win against Stone Ridge Christian."