Sacred Heart Cathedral gets tough to win fifth Northern California title

All the countless hours of practice time and drills and conditioning were of secondary importance at this point.

Sacred Heart Cathedral (San Francisco, Calif.) girls volleyball coach Margi Beima just had one simple request.

"Play tough," she said.

The second-seed Irish (36-3), pushed to the brink by a ultra talented defending champ, played extra tough to pull out a 25-19, 17-25, 21-25, 25-17, 15-10 Northern California Division III championship match at Valley Christian on Tuesday.

Against a host of 6-foot-plus blockers, 5-foot-6 junior outside hitter Kayla Yew had a career-high 19 kills and USF-bound hitter Madison Murtagh added 11 as the Irish (36-3) won their fifth NorCal title and moved into Saturday's state title against Saddleback Valley Christian.

Maia So-Holloway added 38 assists and Alexis Dirige 24 digs as SHC avenged a deflating four-game match to Valley Christian in the Central Coast Section finals.

With that loss looming and down two games to one, Beima said she said nothing special to her team before game four.

"We just came out smoking," she said. "We were just on fire that game four. The girls played tough. There were some cheers before the game. We got a little fired up, and just got tough. We grabbed it. And every single girl on the team contributed. It was awesome."

Beima said the Irish won the serve-pass part of the game, unlike the previous meeting with Valley Christian.

"We served tougher," she said. "Valley Christian still had some incredibly gorgeous kills, but we dug the ones we could. The kids played gritty."

They needed to in order to beat a team with at least three college-bound players, including 6-1 outside hitter Shalom Ifeanyichukwu (Oregon State), 6-3 senior hitter Ella Lajos (Washington State) and 6-3 junior Ronika Stone, who Beima said "can go wherever she wants to go – Penn State, Stanford, anywhere."

Valley Christian has that much firepower and showed it in the CCS title win. That loss for SHC came after it won its first WCAL title, sharing it with 10-time state champion Mitty.

"The (VC loss) took us a little time to recover," Beima admitted. "That rattled our cages a little. But game-by-game we began to rebuild our confidence. We were ready by game time (Tuesday)."

The Irish had to fight back from a 2-1 deficit to defeat El Camino-Sacramento in five games on Saturday.

"I'm so proud of this team," Beima said. "Now it's on to state, but we just want to enjoy this one for tonight."