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Aptos High School

Mariners Athletics

Aptos High School

Mariners Athletics


Aptos High School



Aptos High School Alumni GO MARINERS!

Sports Hall of Fame Bio.

1992 Girls Volleyball Team

Hall of Fame Class of 2010

1992 Girls Volleyball Team - The 1992 girls volleyball season played-out like a Disney movie. In the 80’s and early 90’s, Aptos High School was not known as a volleyball powerhouse. Soquel and Harbor were the perennial top-dogs, and Harbor had won outright, or shared, the previous twelve SCCAL championships. Aptos’s last championship was in 1979. Coming into the final week of the 1992 regular season, the Mariners were 10-2, and having already lost to Soquel and Harbor, they needed to beat both schools in their last two games in order to qualify for the playoffs. On a Tuesday night in November, Aptos defeated Soquel in 4 games. On Thursday, at Harbor High School, a gym where Aptos had not won in the past ten years, in front of a boisterous crowd, Aptos defeated Harbor in 5 games, 15-2, 2-15, 15-10, 7-15, 15-12. The Mariners were tri-champs of the SCCAL, earning their first SCCAL championship in 13 years. In order to determine the CCS automatic qualifiers, Aptos again defeated Harbor and Soquel in a special playoff on back-to-back nights. In CCS, the Mariners defeated Sacred Heart Cathedral and King City to earn a spot in the CCS Finals against league-rival Soquel, who came through the other bracket. Playing at Santa Clara High School, Aptos won the CCS championship in 5 games, 15-7, 15-8, 8-15, 8-15, 17-15. In Nor-Cals, after defeating Rio Americana in 3 games and defending Nor-Cal champion and #1 seed Granada in 4 (Granada had not lost a home game in 7 years!), the Mariners qualified for the Nor-Cal championship game against, once more, league-rival Soquel. On Tuesday night, December 1, the crowd in the packed, standing-room only Warmerdam Gymnasium was estimated at over 800 people. More than 200 were turned away at the door. The Mariners, wearing their blue-and-white striped playoff jerseys, and the Knights, went two complete service rotations before the first point was scored. In a tense and evenly-played two-and-a-half hour match, in front of a raucous and screaming crowd, the Mariners finally prevailed 7-15, 15-13, 15-3, 11-15, 15-7, winning the school’s first and only Nor-Cal Championship in girls volleyball, and only the second in any sport in school history. The Mariners lost in the state championship game to future Olympian and two-time gold medalist Misty May and her Newport Harbor team, but the magic never ended. The members of the 1992 team, the greatest volleyball team in Aptos history, were Charla Brewer, Rachel Brown, Erin Greene, Erin Grizich, Trisha Grizich-Van Lanen, Sara Hagins, Tegan Lynch, Meredith Mayeda, Terra McCourt, Chaska Potter, Pam Rigor, Cindy Staka, and coach Christa Cook. As a post-script, seven of the girls went on to play college volleyball (and to further illustrate the strength of SCCAL volleyball that year, Harbor won the state title in Division II, and SLV lost in the D-IV CCS Championship game). The team was presented into the Hall by Mark Hull, and accepted by Cindy Staka.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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