2006 Varsity Volleyball Match Results
MUSTANGS WIN 2006 LEAGUE!

Is it the year of Fear the Pony?
Play hard. Play Smart. Play proud.

Watch the end of the year Ride That Pony volleyball videos

8-30-06: Scrimmage at Granite Hills: Umm, a few things you probably already know about Granite Hills... it's hot out there and it is a long way to drive. Did I mention that it is hot out there? And it has the only gym that rivals SDA's gym for most creakiest.

It was just a scrimmage based on time, as no official scores were kept, as that wasn't really the purpose. But a real volleyball mom kept score; and the results: five matches played, five matches won. What made that more impressive is that every varsity member played for SDA while the opponents generally only played their top six or eight players.

Anyways if you are keeping score the record is now 0-0 (+5 scrimmage wins).

9-2-06: A journey to University City for another round of scrimmages yielded favorable results... five games, five wins... Umm, that is 10 wins... unofficially.

 

9-6-06: El Capitan @ San Dieguito. The Vaquero's of Bakeside made the 90 minute trek away from the 103 degree East-county heat to the cool SDA gym.  And, for their efforts, the Vaquero's became the taquitos as they were deep fried in three games.  1 - 0 official record. San Dieguito def. El Capitan 25-17, 25-4, 25-8. Kills: Stennett 15. assists: Aries 27.

9-8-06: FALL CLASSIC - SDA and Bonita Vista @ Epic Volleyball Club. San Dieguito. SDA played division 1 school Bonita Vista and schooled the bonitas three straight. 2 - 0 official record.

9-8-06: FALL CLASSIC - SDA and West Hills were next up, and the power of SDA simply leveled the hills as SDA won in three straight matches. 3 - 0 official record.

9-8-06: FALL CLASSIC - SDA and Santa Fe Christian. SFC narrowly defeated San Dieguito is a very tightly contested match. SDA plays SFC twice more, so the team states, "I'll be back." 3-1 official record.

9-8-06: FALL CLASSIC - SDA and pesky Mt. Carmel played. Mt. Carmel, covered the court like hundreds of locusts, bumping, digging, saving, swarming seemingly every inch of the court with their efforts. Mt. Carmel was gracious enough to keep 6'3" Kelly on the sidelines - thanks  :) SDA won 20-25, 25-15, 15-10. 4-1 official record.

9-8-06: FALL CLASSIC - SDA and Fallbrook. In this semifinal game showcasing not only the skillful talent of the volleyball teams, but also the highly advanced mathematical minds of Stephen Hawkings (Coach Dexter) and Albert Einstein (the referee). While Fallbrook beat San Dieguito Academy 27-25 and 25-21... But if you really care about the numbers, in an highly advanced and mentally challenging game of keep tally marks to monitor the number of time-outs called, Einstein tallied four time-out calls for SDA while our own Hawkings could only muster three time-out calls. Alas, Hawkings will undoubtedly assign one of his mathematically gifted freshmen to aid him in monitoring called time-outs as an insurance against a referee's inability to count. 4-2 official record. Oops, I mean  and

9-8-06: FALL CLASSIC SUMMARY SDA finished THIRD out of 26 teams. In fitting recognition, despite the math cat-fighting, SDA's own Leanne Stennett made the Fall Classic All-Tournament Team. Very cool. And... in the Mensa Classic - Referee 1, Dexter 0 - it was the referee's rules.

9-12-06:  Grossmont @ San Dieguito. All the Grossmont players could talk about was how cool the coast weather was, and how nice it was to be in a comfortable climate. They wanted to stay, but... San Dieguito Academy won three straight 25-12, 25-20, 25-14. For the Mustangs, Leanne Stennett had 17 kills, six digs and six aces; Kami Tiano had six kills; and MacKenzie Aries contributed 27 assists. 5-2 official record.

9-15-06:  SDA @ Sante Fe Christian. In an epic battle, SDA beat SFC in five games. SFC's football team provided vocal support for the Eagles, but alas, their raucous behavior motivated the Mustangs to prevail. The scores were 25-23, 14-25, 19-25, 25-17 & 15-13. Kills: Stennett 17, G. Kobara 14, Tiano 6, Aries 3, Frost 2, Beach 1 Assist: Aries 40 Digs: Stennett 9, G. Kobara 12, Tiano 6, Aries 19, Frost 4, A. Kobara 7 Blocks: Stennett 3, Beach 3, Tiano 4, Aries 3 6-2 official record.

9-20-06:  LA Jolla Country Day @ San Dieguito. The Torrey's made the trek to Encinitas only to have San Dieguito Academy chop down their tree as SDA won three straight 25-14, 25-13, 25-8. For the Mustangs, Gia Kobara 15 kills, Leanne Stennet 10 kills, Kami Tiano 10 kills. and MacKenzie Aries contributed 27 assists. Gia Kobara 13 digs, Leanne  Stennett 10 digs. 7-2 official record.

9-27-06:  Calvin Christian @ SDA. Those stylish girls from Calvin brought their high fashion game to San Dieguito. Someone described the SDA play as a bit cartoonish... SDA won. The scores were 25-16, 25-15, 25-16. Kills: Stennett 15, G. Kobara 12, Tiano 10 Assist: Aries 32 8-2 official record.

9-29-06:  Santa Fe Christian @ San Dieguito. There was yelling, taunting, screaming, finger waving and insults hurled... it was a real Rockem-Sockem affair. And that was just between the fans of the two schools. It was a game that was all about high school sports - competitive, passionate and close. SFC won  25-16, 21-25, 25-13, 22-25, 15-12. For the Mustangs, Gia Kobara 15 kills, Leanne Stennett 10 kills and MacKenzie Aries contributed 37 assists. 8-3 official record.

9-27-06:  SDA @ Tri City Christian  Division V TCC played possessed like the basketball team from the movie Hoosiers. SDA somehow dug themselves out of funk and held on to win in five games. The scores were 25-23, 18-25, 12-25, 25-22, 15-9. Kills: Stennett 14, G. Kobara 12, Tiano 10 Digs: Kobara  15, Tiano  10 Assist: Aries 40 9-3 official record.

10-6 and 10-7-06:  La Jolla High Beach City Invitational had about 40 girls volleyball teams, including two nationally ranked teams, plus division I and II schools. At first it looked like we were the equivalent of an 8th grade team going up against these large high schools. Our girls rose to the task and SDA went all the way to the semifinals. San Dieguito Academy 2, Rancho Buena Vista 1 San Dieguito Academy 2, Steele Canyon 0 San Dieguito Academy 2, Ramona 0 San Dieguito Academy 2 Valencia 1 San Dieguito Academy 2 La Jolla 0 For the semi-finals SDA had to face Vista Murrieta, the nations 34th ranked team. The girls reached deep into their roots to sing for divine glory prior to the match, singing such favorites as "We shall overcome," "Ice, Ice," "Say my name," followed up by a melody of Backstreet Boy favorites, and somewhat "provocative dancing," claims one parent, while muttering about something about Janet Jackson... Alas, Vista Murietta defeated the scrappy Mustangs two games to one. Vista Murietta went on to win the tournament. They only game they lost in the entire tournament was to SDA. And finally, in the match for third place: Bishop's defeated San Dieguito 2-0 as Dexter "emptied his bench" as the North County Times reported. The entire team worked very, very hard, and two Mustangs, Leanne Stennett and MacKenzie Aries both achieved recognition as they earned the honor of being named all-tournament players. Read what the Union Tribune and North County Times had to say about the mighty, mighty SDA Mustangs and the La Jolla High beach city invitational volleyball tournament including: ""We played well in the tournament Friday and Saturday, but we were out of gas after playing a very, very good Vista Murrieta team," Harvey said. "We play Bishop's in a couple of weeks, and if you know (Bishop's coach) Tod Mattox, he'll have every rotation dissected before we get there. So I said, 'Let's not show them anything. We'll let everyone play and in a couple of weeks, we'll play them heads up when we're not tired.' " If you are counting, that is five more victory ribbons were earned. 14-5 official record.

10-11-06:  Horizon visited the SDA gym bringing their twin tower middles. Alas, as all horizons, the visitors flat-lined. San Dieguito Academy won 3 games to Horizon's 0, 25-17, 25-11, 25-8. Gia Kobara had 13 kills; Leanne Stennett 12 kills; Kami Tiano 7 kills; Kat Merchat had 5 blocks and MacKenzie Aries 36 assists. Official Record: San Dieguito Academy 15-5, 3-1 in league play

10-13-06:  This Friday the 13th match-up between the fine women of Our Lady of Peace and SDA proved to be bad luck for the Pilots as after the game they realized they should proceed with their true vocation. San Dieguito Academy defeated OLP (with the aid of raucous cheering by the JV and JVII teams): 25-23, 25-15, 27-25. Kills: Stennett 18, G. Kobara 13 Blocks: Beach 6 Assist: Aries 42 16-5 official record.

10-15-06:  TriCity visited the SDA gym bringing their take no prisoners attitude. San Dieguito Academy won in four games, 25-20, 25-23, 23-25, 25-18. Gia Kobara had 17 kills; Leanne Stennett 20 kills; and MacKenzie Aries 53 assists. Official Record: San Dieguito Academy 17-5

10-18-06: SDA at CCA - The battle of the Academy Nerds. In this game THE ACADEMY beat the Academy. Umm, really, how many high schools are really academies? San Dieguito Academy defeated Canyon Crest Academy 25-15, 25-11, 25-17. Kills: Stennett 11 Aries: 27 Aces: Aries 4 Blocks: Tiano 3 18-5 official record.

10-20 and 10-21-06:  Granite Hills - All-Counties Tournament Friday Pool Play: San Dieguito beat Orange County La Sierra, beat Serra and beat Calexico. Saturday Play: San Dieguito beat Brawley. beat Southwest Quarterfinals: Westview defeated San Dieguito 25-17, 21-25, 15-13 Leanne Stennett earned all-tournament honors. 23-6 official record.

9-8-06: FALL CLASSIC REVISTED - SDA and Fallbrook. The North County Times reported that San Dieguito was awarded with a volleyball win after the high school was found to have an ineligible player who had too many years at Fallbrook. NEW 24-5 official record.

10-25-06:  Bishop's @ SDA. On senior's night, Bishops came in to beat SDA, 25-21, 25-14, 25-11 Goodbye to seniors (left) Vanessa Beach, Leanne Stennett, Feliticia Gualda, Tami Kiano and Gia Kobara. Leanne Stennett had 8 kills and MacKenzie Aries had 26 assists. 24-6 official record.

10-26-06: SDA @ Calvin. The Mustangs beat the Crusaders and win the Coastal League championships. San Dieguito Acad. defeated Calvin Christian 25-5, 25-16, 25-18. Leanne Stennett had 13 kills and MacKenzie Aries had 28 assists. 25-6 official record.

11-1-06:  San Dieguito Academy played at Francis Parker. In the past, FP never so much had to call even a time out against us. They had to call two time outs in the first game... San Dieguito Academy lost to Francis Parker 15-25 26-24 18-25 19-25 SAN DIEGUITO ACADEMY - Leanne Stennett 16 kills, 9 digs; Gia Kobara 9 kills, 15 digs; MacKenzie Aries 39 assists, Kayla Frost 5 aces. 25-7 official record.

Who's the knight in shining armor? 11-9-06: San Marcos @ SDA. The Mustangs beat the Knights in the CIF volleyball quarterfinals. San Dieguito Academy defeated San Marcos 25-14, 25-15, 25-18. Leanne Stennett 14 kills, 6 digs; MacKenzie Aries 41 assists, Vanessa Beach 5 blocks. Next game: Semifinals against La Jolla.

Can you dig it? 11-14-06:  La Jolla invaded the San Dieguito Academy gymnasium. In the past, The  Vikings were scrappy and were digging everything. The home town girls were scrappier and dug everything back... San Dieguito Academy beat the La Jolla 25-14, 20-25, 25-17, 25-22 SAN DIEGUITO ACADEMY - Leanne Stennett 15 kills; Gia Kobara 9 kills; MacKenzie Aries 35 assists 27-7 official record. Next game: FINALS against Cathedral Catholic.

CIF San Diego County Division III Championship 11-19-06: San Dieguito @ Cathedral Catholic. The Mustangs lost in the county championship game San Dieguito Academy defeated San Marcos 18-25, 16-25, 22-25. Kills:Stennett 11. Assists Aries  23 Digs: Kobara  12, Reeves Sportsmanship award: Stennett Next game: State play-offs against Rancho Santa Margarita

11-21-06: The San Dieguito Academy traveled to Rancho Santa Margarita and lost in three games ending the season in 9th place in the Division III for the state of California. Good job girls!!!

2005 Varsity Volleyball Match Results

September 9th and 10th San Diego Classic.

The Lessons Of Fanta

Episode One: The Little Team That Could...

Movie Review: This movie portrays a classic David and Goliath struggle as small band of academic warriors attempt to establish in athletic foothold led by their master volleyball coach Dexter-san.

Set against a background of high school athletics, Dexter-san inspires his team by sharing his broad knowledge base, including the lessons of Fanta. A the team learns and begins to embraced "The Lessons Of Fanta" -- which includes hustle, team defense and hard work their confidence grows. It should be noted that Dexter-san discovered these valuable building blocks of success from Coach Wooden

In this episode you witness how this team, which barely averages 16 years of age, coalesce and transform from a team that "hopes they can win" into a team that "believes it can win."

After watching this full episode, both the viewers and the players start to believe in themselves. Watch the team evolve and soon realize that they can beat the evil invaders from the north, Valley Center, and the former Chipmunk turned minister, Calvin Christian.

As a bonus, this SDA girls performed their hit single, "Ride That Pony" (the long version).

The results of the matches
Lost to Fallbrook
Beat Valhalla
Beat Point Loma
Lost to Calvin Christian
Lost to Valley Center
 

This episode opens with Coach Dexter-san focusing on the Horizon game, creating his strategy. As Dexter-san enjoys a long, cool drink of the pineapple Fanta elixir, he sees an image of his team as a group of war torn veterans, fighting hard every step of the way. Dexter-san knows that even though his team are somewhat decimated with injuries and administrative eligibility issues, that the JV players he has called upon will step-up and fulfill key roles.


As Dexter-san draws in the last of the mystical Fanta, he suddenly has a vision of how to compete against the church based school; using a bible-like quote against them (of course, adjusted to public school, nondenominational standards). The magic of Fanta gives Dexter-san this clear message and he promptly labels it Dexterism 9:16, "In adversity you will find truth and power."

He now knows his team can prevail. He calls his team together and shares the adversity quote provided by the Fanta. As they break huddle Dexter-san whispers, "We shall overcome." With that comment, Lea Ann's back is somehow healed enough to play the game and the freshman players grow two inches taller.

The game begins and the SDA's youth and inexperience immediately give way to hustle and enthusiasm as the volleyball team prevails against Horizon.  As Dexter-san walks off the gym floor, he is heard to utter a single phrase, "Righteous."

Episode Three (Grossmont): Proving there is no life way East of 5...

The mighty warrior princesses traveled their invading vehicle into the lands far, far to the East. Some say you can see the end of the Earth from this vantage.

The Hillers of Grossmont tried to use oppressive heat by shutting all the doors to their gymnasium to create an environment detrimental to our coastal girls. They also hid their gym in a sprawling mass of urban planning gone bad; to locate the gym the team had to trek past an auto shop full of '65 Plymouth's and AMC Gremlins, then wander a maize of link fences worthy of surrounding a penal institution, finally traversing across landscaping so bad that it appeared 25 goats had escaped from the watchful eyes of all 2,394 of the School's Future Farmers of America program members (watching Beverly Hillbilly reruns, no doubt). Yes, it is hard to believe that 2,394 students and their families live in this remote part of America.

Coach Dexter-san considered giving all his girls an extra can of Fanta to overcome these many obstacles, including the heat, but then decided to save the mighty juice for a special game.

The volleyball girls played hard and overcame the perils of this harsh world, easily defeating the women of Elly-May clones, once again proving there is no life way East of 5.

Episode Four (Carlsbad): Big school barely nips SDA (wait to next year...)

Carlsbad High School with a pool of over 3,000 students tried to flex its superior muscle against the SDA team, which has just 1,500 academically-oriented students.

Dexter-san gathered his team and told them that it appeared initially that Carlsbad mistook our school size for our "heart" size. In the first match, SDA lost by just three points, then stunned the overconfident Carlsbad team by beating them in the second game. The remaining games were very competitive, especially considering the differential in enrollment.

While SDA incurred a loss at Carlsbad, the games were very close, as reported by the North County Times:
Carlsbad 3, San Dieguito Academy 1
San Dieguito Academy 22 25 20 18
Carlsbad 25 23 25 25

Notable: Courtney Tanner led the Lancers with 17 kills. Ariana Covington had 13 kills and Kandi Walton had 14 kills for the Lancers. Setters Alexa Harper and Cory Santos combined for 58 assists.
For San Dieguito Academy, Leanne Stenett had 10 kills and setter MacKenzie Aries had 22 assists.

Records: Carlsbad 7-2, San Dieguito Academy 4-4.

The Lesson of Fanta for this match? The old adage, "It is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog," was realized by the team as they begin to believe they can beat larger schools. Next time these two schools meet, there may be a different outcome, no matter what their student population is...

Episode Five (OLP): Exorcism needed

The pre-nuns for Our Lady of Peace visited SDA and initiated a good ol' fashioned revival... When it was over, Dexter-san said, "We need an exorcist."

SDA lost 3 games to 1.


 

Episode Six (Calvin Christian): Second Verse

There is a song that goes, "Second verse, same as the first." Unfortunately, the second time we play Calvin, we lost again.

Episode Seven (La Jolla Tournament): A cast... of little people

In volleyball parlance big people are the seniors, and the little people are the freshman. Early in the La Jolla volleyball tournament, the biggest of the big people, Stacey, went down with a badly sprained ankle. The team feared that Stacey would need a cast and how she might look hobbling around. 

Regardless, the team knew Stacey was out for the rest of the tournament, and some of the little people had to step in to play.






By Saturday, Kami and Kelly were either sick or injured, leaving only six players to play most of the final matches.

Coach Dexter-san looked to his bench and summoned ALL the little people. The Lilliputians came into the game, often swarming in three at a time to fight for their volleyball team.  Could the Lilliputians overcome the giants of the tournament?

Normally coach Dexter-san calls where he wants the ball to be served by using a highly cryptic series of finger taps, contorted eyebrow gestures, subtle hand movements, deep breathing groans finally culminating in graceful finger extensions to signify the exact location for delivery; sorta' like how gangs sign.

Midway through the tournament, the team was so finely in tune with coach Dexter-san, and their serving was so precise, that Dexter-san no longer signing in the play. The opposing coach thought Dexter-san was using the "Vulcan mind-meld" technique and complained to the referee.







Amazingly, courageously and astonishingly, the cast of little people won all four matches on Saturday to win the entire tournament. The team celebrated wildly.

The lesson of Fanta? It can be good to be little... Thank gawd for the Lilliputians.









(postscript... If your daughter is overly athletic, hustles after balls and jumps a lot, you should consider having her wear ankle braces, or at least, high-tops. Even coach Dexter-san wears high tops and look at how many games he gets in to. Kenzie has tried almost every brand of ankle brace, including the easy to put on Active Ankles (they offer just average to poor support). The best ones we have found are the Axis Ankle - they are about $20 per ankle brace http://shop.store.yahoo.com/satorsoccer/axanstab.html. They are highly stable, easy to wash and are the best, by a wide margin, of all ankle braces we tested).




Episode Eight (Tri-City Christian): Yet another school of religion

The eagles of Tri-City played host to the SDA team. While it seems that every other school we play has a religious orientation, it really is two out of three schools that we play that are religious schools. While Tri-City beat SDA, Coach Dexter-san told the non-religious affiliation SDA team that next year will be a "Resurrection" and the team better play better or else all the kids are going to come to his church of "I'm-gonna-whoop-your-a**."  Hallelujah!

Episode Nine (La Jolla Country Day): Make my (country) day.

La Jolla Country Day visited SDA and the Torrey's were beaten by both the varsity and JV teams.

Episode Ten (Santa Fe Christian): A rivalry between David and Goliath.

There are many rivalries; Ohio State vs Michigan, UCLA vs USC, Yankees vs Red Sox and SDA vs. SFC.  These matches are always fun to watch as emotions run high. While SFC is a smaller school, there volleyball team is highly successful and do well not only in San Diego, but in the state. Plus their volleyball squad in more than twice as large as SDA's.

Santa Fe Christian hosted SDA expecting a leisurely night of doing their nails, listening to Christian rock and maybe breaking a little sweat against our volleyball youngsters, especially knowing, that so many key players were out for the match. The SDA squad could only suit up seven players. 

SDA lost the first game. SDA almost lost a player to a badly sprained ankle, had she not been able to play, SDA would have forfeited the match because they were out of substitutions.  By the end of the second game there was definitely something to do with nails, as in the sound of nails screeching across a chalkboard as tiny, undermanned SDA beat the highly ranked SFC girls. 
Then in the fourth game, just to show SFC that they could, SDA beat them again, by digging ball after ball, saving balls from beyond the scorers table and turning them into points, and great serving.

Alas, by game five, the 16 girls on the SFC volleyball team wore out the tired seven players on SDA.

We may not have won, but Coach Dexter-san could see that the Lessons of Fanta were starting to gel.

Episode Eleven (Granite Hills Tournament): Back Row Attack

On Friday, SDA played three matches and won all using a heavy back row attack, hitting ball after ball after ball from just beyond the 10 foot line. The three wins on Friday placed SDA into the gold bracket on Saturday where they faced other undefeated teams. On Saturday, undersized front row players provided key blocks, but the SDA girls could not prevail.

Episode Twelve (Francis Parker): Quick game

SDA barely had six players and lost.

Episode Thirteen (Calvin Christian): Calvin - Take 5

SDA played Calvin for the third time this season. While the Calvin team beat SDA, it took them five games to do so as the SDA team has improved substantially since the beginning of the year.

Episode Fourteen (Sante Fe Christian): SFC Take 5

The band of young volleyball players, each a warrioress, are buoyed by a new tribe member. The invading eagles of Sante Fe are played to five games, once again. Coach Dexter-san, drinking the fifth can of Fanta from a six-pack, reflects to his team. We continue to improve. Five games last time at Sante Fe. Five games at Calvin Christian. Five games again with SFC. Dexter-san paused, and was pleased with the improvement of his team, as each of the teams that beat the girls were better, yet it took five games. High 5 to the team.




Episode Fifteen (Tri-City Christian): TCC Take 5

Down two games to nothing against Tri-City the SDA team rallied to win the next two games, to even the match.  Although they were overmatched, the SDA team fought valiantly.

Episode Sixteen (Kearny): Play-offs - a victory!

Kearny visited SDA in the first round of the Division III play-offs. SDA swept the Kearny Comets in three straight games.

Episode Seventeen (Cathedral): The play-offs end.
SDA travelled to the new Cathedral High School. The team started off very nervous. Coach Dexter-san wishes he had brought more Fanta to calm down his players. Alas, they lost the match.

Epilogue: Get Ready For Next Season!
With all starters returning for next year and a year of Fanta lessons under our belt, the volleyball team looks forward to next season.

September 15th Horizon

Sami "Swiss Army Knife" Houston played setter, marking the sixth position the versatile player has taken on for SDA. She said the only position left for her to play is the coaching role...

The JV girls beat Horizon.