Girls volleyball: Marin Academy wins title in five-set thriller

Senior setter Gabby Grujic and junior outside hitter Kate Lane worked their magic on Saturday night to lift the Marin Academy girls volleyball team to its second section title since 2019.

The Wildcats’ stars never left the court during Marin Academy’s 25-20, 27-25, 21-25, 19-25, 15-10 thriller against visiting Head-Royce of Oakland to claim the North Coast Section Division IV championship.

Grujic finished with 42 assists and six kills. The 6-foot-2 Lane had 17 kills and 14 digs.

“This is so, so good,” said Lane. “Gabby is awesome. It’s just amazing playing with her. We were really close to getting this last year. ”

The Wildcats (25-12) were making their third consecutive appearance in the NCS finals. (No championship was held in 2020 due to COVID.) MA won the Division V championship in 2019 and finished second to Cardinal Newman in the Division IV finals last season.

“This is the biggest goal on our radar,” said Marin Academy coach Craig Wong. “I thought Gabby, Kate and Lin Borland really stabilized us. You expect it to be competitive in the finals.”

Borland had 32 digs, three ace serves and a kill. Tess Etem added 10 kills for the host Wildcats.

In the fifth and deciding set, Grujic used a setter dump to push the Wildcats ahead 11-8 and Lane made it 12-8 with a kill from the left outside. The dynamic duo then proved unstoppable for a set-and-kill combo that gave the Wildcats a 13-9 edge.

Lane said she always expected Head-Royce (30-7) to come back until that pivotal feed from Grujic that pushed the Wildcats two points from the championship.

“She played well in the biggest moments,” Wong said of Lane. “I think she was very, very focused.”

In the opening set, Marin Academy never trailed, but couldn’t really shake off the scrappy Jayhawks. Lane finally cemented the first game with a kill for the final point.

The Wildcats came from behind to take the second set thanks to solid serving from Kirsten Wang and a few Head-Royce hitting errors.

Just as the Wildcats seemed poised to pounce on the guests for another straight-set win, the Head-Royce student section started cheering as loudly as the home crowd and seemingly willed the Jayhawks to win the next two games.

The Jayhawks and Wildcats were tied at 20-20 in set three before Head-Royce closed the door. In the fourth set, the teams were tied at 13-all before the Jayhawks slowly crept away to even the match at 2-2.

“They were fighting the whole way,” Lane said of Head-Royce. “We had to play very hard.”

Lane and Grujic will get another chance to play together during the CIF NorCal tournament, which begins on Tuesday. Seeds and pairings will be announced Sunday.