San Marcos Boys’ Volleyball Holds Off Dos Pueblos in Five-Set Thriller

Senior Night was a roller-coaster ride for the San Marcos High boys’ volleyball team, but the Royals emerged with their Channel League title hopes intact. 

After surrendering a two-sets-to-none lead, San Marcos regained its rhythm in set five and cooled off red-hot Dos Pueblos to capture a 25-13, 25-19, 23-25, 20-25, 15-9 victory on Tuesday night at the Thunderhut.

“All of a sudden in set three, we started making a lot of mistakes in a row and let them back in. You don’t want to let a very good team wake up like they were able to do,” said San Marcos coach Roger Kuntz. “Clearly they didn’t have their first two sets the way that they wanted, and then all of a sudden, they are on fire and we can’t slow them down. It’s like a train coming the other direction.

“I was proud of the players that came in and provided a little bit of pop for us in set five, and I thought that quite honestly that made a difference.”

The Royals dominated the first two sets by capitalizing on Dos Pueblos serving errors. A kill by senior outside hitter Jack Wilson increased the San Marcos lead to 16-6 in the opening set, and the Royals continued to pour it on as a Dos Pueblos hitting error clinched a 1-0 set lead for San Marcos, 25-13.

Dos Pueblos kept set two closer, but San Marcos outside hitter Mason Rice cleaned up a scramble at the net to give the Royals a 10-7 lead. 

Landon Sheffey and Cameron Earls combined for a block that increased the San Marcos lead to 19-12. A late rally from Dos Pueblos highlighted by back-to-back aces by Micah Goss cut the Dos Pueblos deficit to 24-19, but San Marcos clinched the set 25-19 on a Dos Pueblos serving error.

In set three, San Marcos took an 18-12 lead on a kill by Wilson and appeared poised to complete the sweep, but quickly cut the deficit to 20-19 sparked by a strong serving run by Nathan Vincent. 

Noah Grant and Wyatt Silver combined for a block that gave the Chargers a 22-21 and Dos Pueblos forced a fourth set, 25-23, after a San Marcos hitting error.

Junior Kawin Ramko made his presence felt in set four and shifted the momentum in the Chargers’ favor. Ramko tooled the San Marcos block to give Dos Pueblos a 5-4 lead, added another kill that brought the Chargers to set point at 24-20 and followed that up with a solo block to force a fifth and final set.

Ramko recorded five of his 11 kills in set four. 

“I think Kawin had a great night. He sat the first set and then came out and was having a ton of success just being loose and swinging at it,” said Dos Pueblos coach Ehren Hug. “This sport is contagious; one guy starts eating and then everybody else wants to get some too.”

San Marcos relied on Rice heavily in the fifth set, and he delivered with five kills. His second kill of the set gave the Royals a 7-4 lead, and they never looked back.  With San Marcos leading 13-9, Rice delivered a thunderous spike straight down to the floor that served as an exclamation point on the San Marcos victory.

“That’s the best feeling ever in volleyball, besides winning with your team,” said Rice of his spike. “It was awesome.”

Rice finished with a match-high 20 kills and came through when San Marcos needed him the most.

“Last year we actually did the same thing, but lost to DP, so we had a lot of flashbacks when we were out there getting recuperated,” Rice said. “I just knew it wasn’t going to happen. I couldn’t let it happen. The team couldn’t let it happen, so we worked together and played our game.”