La Costa Canyon upsets Sage Creek, heads to SoCal Division 3 boys volleyball championship game

Most high school volleyball offenses go to the outside at least twice as often as the middle or right side combined.

It’s a combination of having the strongest hitters out there and not wanting to take a lot of chances with the more difficult set.

Not La Costa Canyon.

The Mavericks ran their offense Thursday through the right side — and the middle after a slow start there — resulting in a 20-25, 25-12, 25-18, 25-19 win over host Sage Creek in the CIF SoCal Division 3 Championship semifinal match.

La Costa Canyon, with its very non-championship record of 17-19, advances to the state regional championship Saturday at 6 p.m. at West Ranch, which beat Mission Vista 3-1 on Thursday.

“Absolutely awesome,” Mavericks coach Mark Brubaker said. “I couldn’t have asked for a better bunch of guys. It’s been a strange season. To be under .500 and win Division 1 in CIF and now be playing for D3 state, I can’t complain.”

La Costa Canyon’s two opposites led the way offensively. Carson Ball and Jayden Magnin finished with 12 and 13 kills, respectively. They combined for four stuff blocks as well.

And it wasn’t just the 25 combined kills; it was the fact most of them came when the Mavericks needed it most.

“(Magnin) was probably our best matchup,” Ball said. “They were putting two or three guys up on our middles. He’s an incredible player. He touches so high and can swing over most anybody.”

Sage Creek (37-12), which was 3-0 against La Costa Canyon on the season entering Thursday, couldn’t get going after a dominant first set.

Senior outside hitter Justin Baldner had seven of his match-high 24 kills in the set one. But the Bobcats would have the lead only two more times the rest of the night.

Charlie Hartmann was the only other Sage Creek player to finish in double digits in kills with 10.

“I’m super proud of our boys,” said David Savage, whose team won the Avocado League and beat nationally ranked Torrey Pines this season. “They did a great job of building and continuing to grow the entire time. It’s not something we thought we were going to do. We just wanted to try to improve. To be in this spot to have a chance to win a state title is huge. I’m proud of them and all their dedication and hard work.”

La Costa Canyon had trouble early getting the ball to its big man in the middle, Maddox Brandenburg. His first kill didn’t come until the Mavericks were down 22-14 in the first set.

But he found a way to score points with a pair of aces early in the second set and eventually finished in double figures in kills with 10 to go along with three stuff blocks.

“It was mostly between our ears,” Ball said of the slow start. “We had three tough ones with Sage coming into tonight. There’s been some different stuff going on so tonight we just had to get good inside our ears in order to be playing well.”

In a back-and-forth fourth set, Magnin had two early kills to maintain a two-point Mavericks cushion. When the Bobcats closed to 16-14, his kill in serve receive got a stagnant offense going again.

Following back-to-back losses to Torrey Pines and Sage Creek to close out April, the Mavericks are now on a seven-match win streak.

And counting.

“It was definitely a rough start,” Magnin said. “But we’ve come through as a very solid team. It’s an honor to be on this team. We are absolutely peaking.”