The St. Margaret’s boys volleyball team is in the CIF Southern Section semifinals for the sixth season in a row.
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In three of the past six seasons the Tartans have advanced to a CIF-SS final, and twice they emerged as a CIF-SS champion — in 2022 and ‘24.
St. Margaret’s, a private school in San Juan Capistrano, is not a big school. The school’s enrollment is 466.
The Tartans will compete against a larger school from the prestigious Trinity League when they take on Orange Lutheran in the CIF-SS Division 2 semifinals Saturday at 5 p.m. at Orange Lutheran.
What is going on so that year after year St. Margaret’s puts an elite boys volleyball team on the court?
“We’ve been blessed with really good talent,” said Tartans coach Bob Yoder.
Yoder is a large reason for the talent at St. Margaret’s. He was an All-American player at USC and later coached the Trojans to an NCAA championship and to three runner-up finishes. Yoder has also coached at Concordia University.
The Tartans lost four starters from last season’s team that lost to Peninsula in the Division 2 semifinals. They have only eight players on the roster this season. Two of those players are standout middle blockers, 6-foot-7 Miles Eaton and 6-5 Beckett Harvey.
“They’re two of the best middles in our league and, generally, in the county,” said Yoder, who began coaching boys and girls volleyball at St. Margaret’s in the 2021-22 school year. “We’ve built the whole team on them.”
St. Margaret’s does not put a libero on the court.
“All of the boys have had to learn to play defense,” Yoder said.
Plus, Yoder said, “we run a weird offense” and “we just throw the ball high up in the middle.”
St. Margaret’s won the Pacific Coast League with a 12-2 record. It’s a good volleyball league.
In the 16-team Division 2 bracket the Tartans beat Cypress in five sets in the first round and swept San Clemente in the quarterfinals Tuesday.
Yoder praised St. Margaret’s players for being well-rounded and for meeting every challenge this season. He hopes the Tartans continues to be fundamentally sound Saturday against Orange Lutheran.
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“It always boils down to being able to serve and pass,” Yoder said.
VOLLEYBALL NOTES
Two at-large teams in the CIF-SS playoffs are in the Division 2 semifinals: Orange Lutheran and Edison. The Chargers, who are from the Sunset League, play at Camarillo on Saturday. …
The Division 1 semifinal Saturday between Mira Costa and Huntington Beach is at 1 p.m. Hawaii is playing Long Beach State in an NCAA playoff match Saturday evening at Pauley Pavilion, and the Mira Costa and Huntington Beach coaches and teams have many connections to the teams. Huntington Beach coach Craig Pazanti’s son, Jake, plays for Long Beach State. So the two teams — with approval from the CIF-SS — agreed to play their semifinal in the afternoon. …
Huntington Beach lost to Mira Costa in five sets last season in the Division 1 final. …
Other Orange County teams in the semifinals Saturday: Division 3, Foothill at Windward; Division 4, Crossroads at Sunny Hills; El Dorado at Bishop Diego; Division 6, Garden Grove at Pasadena Poly; and Division 7, Tustin at Oakwood. …
The Yeshiva vs. Tarbut V’Torah semifinal in Division 9 will be played Friday at 10:30 a.m. …
The CIF-SS finals will be played May 15 and 16. Some of the section’s nine finals will be played at Cerritos College and some will be played at home-team sites. The specific dates and locations for the finals will be announced after all of the semifinals have been played. …
The week after the CIF-SS finals play begins in the CIF Southern California Regional playoffs. The champions for CIF-SS Divisions 2-9 will be invited to the regional playoffs along with six teams from the Division 1 playoffs — the four semifinalists (Mira Costa, Huntington Beach, Loyola and Redondo Union) plus the two highest ranked/seeded teams after those four, which would be No. 5 Corona del Mar and No. 6 Newport Harbor. …
CIF State boys volleyball championships will be played for the first time this season. The state finals will be at Fresno City College on May 30. …
Brea Olinda has had a fine two-season run in boys volleyball. Last season the Wildcats qualified for the playoffs for the first time since 2009 and advanced to the Division 7 final. This season the Wildcats won the North Hills League for the school’s first boys volleyball league championship and advanced to the Division 5 quarterfinals, where they lost to Bishop Diego in five sets. They finished the season 27-11. …
The Orange County Boys and Girls All-Star Volleyball Games are May 26 at Newport Harbor High. The girls game is starts at 6 p.m. and the boys game begins at 7:30 p.m.
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