The CIF championship was not on the line, but it may as well have been Friday night in the annual boys\u2019 volleyball showdown between Mira Costa and Loyola.<\/p>\n
Showing why they entered their grudge match in Manhattan Beach ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the country, two of the Southland\u2019s most storied programs battled for five scintillating sets as the host Mustangs rallied for a 18-25, 26-28, 25-22, 25-22, 15-11 win in an instant classic that lasted over two and a half hours.<\/p>\n
Leading the comeback was junior outside hitter Mateo Fuerbringer, who finished with 37 kills, five blocks and three aces. Considered the top recruit in the nation, he committed to UCLA in December.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey came out hot and we weren\u2019t playing our best,\u201d said Fuerbringer, whose sister Charlie was a setter for Mira Costa and just wrapped up her sophomore season at Wisconsin, leading the Badgers to the Final Four. \u201cWe knew if we just stayed with it and played out the game we could win it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mustangs, who won their ninth Southern Section crown last spring and subsequently captured the inaugural Division I state title in Fresno, notched their 15th consecutive victory and improved to 22-1.<\/p>\n
Wyatt Davis, a senior headed to UC Santa Barbara, added 13 kills and seven blocks and senior opposite hitter Enzo Barker pounded nine kills for top-ranked Mira Costa, which leveled the match at two sets on a right-side kill from Fuerbringer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew they\u2019re a great team,\u201d Davis said of Loyola. \u201cBetween sets two and three we made adjustments, guys came off the bench to make key plays, Enzo moved to the outside and we made less errors in the last set. We wanted it more than them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mira Costa\u2019s lone setback came Feb. 21 against Corona del Mar in the Redondo Classic final \u2014 a loss the Mustangs avenged four days later. Corona del Mar edged Loyola in the Best of the West semifinals March 7, but Loyola turned the tables on the Sea Kings in nonleague action.<\/p>\n
Senior outside hitter and USC signee Blake Fahlbusch led Loyola on Friday with 15 kills and four blocks, senior libero and Loyola Chicago commit Matt Kelly was a whirling dervish on defense, hitter JP Wardy contributed 10 kills and opposite Lucas Posell had nine for the No. 2 Cubs (12-2). Fahlbusch\u2019s brother Thatcher played for Mira Costa and is now a freshman outside hitter at Hawaii.<\/p>\n
Mira Costa swept last year\u2019s nonleague meeting at Loyola to end a four-year losing streak to the Cubs, who had handed the Mustangs their first loss in the Best of the West finals. Mira Costa lost only one more match (to Chicago Marist at the Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions) to finish 37-2 last spring.<\/p>\n
The Mustangs are on pace to surpass that win total even after the graduation of Grayson Bradford, now a freshman at UCLA.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nice having a middle like Wyatt [Davis],\u201d said Mira Costa senior setter Jake Newman, who had 55 assists. \u201cHe and Charlie give me great options. It\u2019s a pretty easy concept.\u201d<\/p>\n
Loyola holds the section record with 13 titles, the last in 2024 when it beat Mira Costa 25-21, 25-22, 25-21, in the finals behind 15 kills from Sean Kelly, now at UCLA. The teams met three previous times in the finals, Loyola winning in 2005 and 2010 and Mira Costa prevailing in 2012.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew we could do it,\u201d Newman added. \u201cWe knew at some point we\u2019d get that spot where we\u2019re playing our best. I started to key in on their blockers to see who was switching on Mateo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coach Greg Snyder, in his third season at Mira Costa, wants to pilot his squad to a repeat but knows it will not be easy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first two sets we were predictable, we were passing poorly, they got us out of system and got a lot of touches on our swings,\u201d Snyder said. \u201cMateo played great but we were too Mateo-heavy tonight. We have to run that middle because we\u2019re better than them there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Snyder fully expects to see Loyola again this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe gym was packed \u2014 this got more buildup than when we played them in the finals,\u201d he said. \u201cI felt whoever won tonight should be the No. 1 team in the country and whoever lost should be No. 2.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The CIF championship was not on the line, but it may as well have been Friday night in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":671063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[7611,1582,276,113830,148357,2378,283234,283232,163457,2961,224,5337,5948,94433,283231,471,283235,21477,2501,283233],"class_list":["post-671062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-block","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-corona-del-mar","tag-final-four","tag-friday-night","tag-great-team","tag-host-mustang","tag-kill","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-loss","tag-loyola","tag-mira-costa-boy","tag-no","tag-senior-outside-hitter","tag-set","tag-ucla","tag-wyatt-davis"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}