Rachel Rosen
Staff Writer
The Mustangs had an upsetting end to their season, losing to Newport Harbor High School on Saturday night in the Division one California Interscholastic Federation finals.
Newport came out at full speed, holding nothing back against the Mustangs. Newport’s talent all over the court was hard to stop, winning the first set 25-20.
“Newport is a very solid team with great players,” Sophomore Ben Coordt said. “They had weapons all around the court and played a great match. They run a super fast offense that was hard for us to stop.”
Costa continued to struggle, making little mistakes that they could not afford. Newport did not hold back, winning the second set 25-19.
“In order to win, we just needed to clean up our mistakes,” Senior Lauch Farris said. “We gave Newport too many points off unforced errors.”
The Mustangs finally started to gain momentum in the third set, with key points from Junior Sam Collins. Costa won the set 25-14.
“I think our team played ok,” Collins said. “We couldn’t pass too well and didn’t take care of the little things.”
Newport Harbor reacted quickly to their lose, making minimal mistakes in the fourth set. Although Costa fought hard and played well, they could not pull off a win. The Mustangs lost the last set 25-22, becoming division one California Interscholastic Federation runner-ups.
“Yesterday the team didn’t play out best match,” Coordt said. “There was a lot of ups and downs. Overall we didn’t play bad, but we needed to play better if we were going to beat Newport.”
Although they came up short on Saturday, the boys are competing in state this week in hopes of making up for their unfortunate lose. Their first game is this Tuesday against West View High School at El Camino College.
“Overall I’m super proud of this group of guys and how we grew as a team this season,” Coordt said. “Although we didn’t end up champions we had a great run, and we are going to prepare one last week to try to win state.”
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