Girls volleyball: Branson falls in five-set battle against Rocklin
The Branson School girls volleyball team ran into a Rocklin buzzsaw in the first set of the North Coast Section Open Division semifinals at College of Marin on Saturday but battled back to win two of the next three before the buzzsaw ultimately reappeared in the fifth set.
The Bulls won the second and fourth sets and came within a hair of winning the third as well before the Thunder rolled again in the fifth for a 25-13, 21-25, 29-27, 21-25, 15-6 victory.
“I think it was less about us figuring it out and about us shaking off some of the past trauma from last year and realizing that, ‘Oh no, we can absolutely do this’,” Branson coach Michelle Brazil said of the middle three sets.
The 2024 Bulls entered the NCS Open playoffs as the top seed but fell to No. 8 Rocklin – coached by Bret Almazan-Cezar – in four sets in the first round. Saturday’s rematch pitted the No. 3 Thunder (36-4) against the No. 2 Bulls (21-8).
“That was like the most chessy volleyball matches I’ve coached in in a very long time,” Brazil said. “I mean Bret is probably one of the greatest volleyball coaches we have in California, maybe period. He is a prolific coach so I knew that it was not going to be easy and if we were doing something successfully he would have another plan.”
Almazan-Cezar is a four-time national coach of the year and won 11 state titles at Archbishop Mitty – the team Rocklin will face in the NorCal Open final on Tuesday. Mitty (33-3) is coached by Jake Spain, formerly of Marin Catholic, Redwood, and Absolute Volleyball.
Branson fell behind 14-6 in the first set after Rocklin sophomore outside hitter Sophie Burns went on the first of many long service runs.
“That’s probably the toughest serving team we’ve faced all season, bar none,” Brazil said. “That’s not something you can necessarily tell on video. You can figure out a lot of stuff, you can prepare for a lot of stuff, but it’s very hard to tell how tough someone serves. They did a phenomenal job of that.”
Rocklin’s freshman middle blocker Sidney Jones foreshadowed her fifth-set dominance with a huge first set.
“We knew we also had to serve tough because they have two incredibly talented middles,” Brazil said. “If you do serve tough, those middles kind of become obsolete and in order to give us a shot, we had to serve tough. So I did think for the most part their middles were not nearly as effective as they could have been because of our serving.”
Players on both teams were going for big serves all night. Rocklin’s servers, led by Burns, made things extremely tough for Branson in the serve receive department.
“Her serve just really dropped,” Brazil said of Burns. “Like the bottom just dropped out of it and it was low to begin with but then it would kind of get lower. A lot of times a serve can kind of creep up on you but it almost creeped down. It was hard to manage.”
Branson players had to meet the big occasion with some of their toughest serving of the season and it helped the Bulls get back into the match.
Blake Cussen (13 kills, 14 digs) had a trio of kills in a short span to give the Bulls a 19-17 lead in the second set. Rocklin tied it at 21-21 then Ella Tsai (15 kills) and Abby King (16 kills, four aces) had a flurry of late kills to tie the match at 1-1. Libero Lucy Tusher (22 digs) had some crucial serves at the end to help Branson close out the set.
The third set was the most competitive of the night with Branson moving ahead 21-19 on a pair of kills by King. Rocklin roared back – again on Burns’ serve – to take a 24-21 lead. Freshman setter Kate Bianchi helped save three set points with her serve to put Branson ahead 25-24. The Bulls had three set points of their own but Rocklin answered the bell every time, eventually prevailing 29-27 on a kill by Gianna Bogan.
Branson shrugged off the disappointment of coming so close to a 2-1 lead and held off a late Rocklin rally to win the fourth on back-to-back points from King on a kill and a block.
The Bulls had spent the entire night chasing Rocklin only to see the Thunder raise their game in the fifth set. Branson’s tough serving had kept Jones from being a huge factor in the middle three sets but she dominated the final set, piling up four kills – including the match winner – and two blocks as Rocklin quickly pulled away.
“We weren’t passing great so we were making their life a lot easier,” Brazil said. “(Jones) was able to do more because she was there and she’s so physical. It was a combination of her just being amazing and us not really taking care of the little things.”
Rocklin ran off six consecutive points to go ahead 14-4 and make it all but a formality. Branson fought off two match points on a block and a kill by Ellie Corsello but succumbed on a massive swing by Jones on the next point.
“We came into this season like ‘OK, we’ll see what happens,’ you know what I mean?,” Brazil said. “I think it’s a real testament to team chemistry and what that can provide in a team when you have that trust between the players.”
Branson finished the regular-season in a three-way tie for first place in the MCAL and was the No. 2 seed based on tiebreakers. The Bulls lost to MC in the semifinals but bounced back to win the North Coast Section Open title as the No. 4 seed, dropping San Ramon Valley, Redwood and MC on the road in the process.
“The x-factor for us was the chemistry and that allowed us to grow and take risks that if that chemistry wasn’t there, maybe there would have been some eye rolling or some snide comments,” Brazil said. “We were able to not do that and they had so much fun together. That allowed us to get so much better and to just go places that I don’t think anyone expected us to be. The pride I feel in the girls’ development – I mean my heart is like the Grinch, like my heart is bursting. I don’t want to compare myself to the Grinch – I’m happier than that – but that’s what it is.
“It really is the chemistry that’s the x-factor. We had that in spades and I love that. I love that they loved each other and had fun. … I’m sad it’s over but I’m so proud of them.”