PREP ROUNDUP : Fountain Valley Rallies for Volleyball Title

When Fountain Valley trailed Esperanza two games to one in its Sunset League finale, instead of watching its league title slip away, Fountain Valley found some emotion, then found its way to a comeback.

The Barons, ranked second in Orange County, won their first boys’ volleyball league title since 1984 by rallying for a 15-9, 11-15, 11-15, 15-11, 15-6 victory Friday over visiting Esperanza.

Chris Kosty had eight of his game-high 26 kills in Game 5 and Phil Domingo blocked sophomore Jon Alleman at match-point to put Fountain Valley (14-2, 9-1 in league) in a first-place tie with third-ranked Huntington Beach (15-2, 9-1), which defeated Los Alamitos in three games Friday.

Ed Ratledge had 25 kills and setter Kurt Seckington had 71 assists for the Barons, who will enter the Southern Section Division I playoffs as the league’s No. 1-seeded team based on the league’s tie-breaker.

Esperanza (10-7, 5-5) still qualified for the playoffs as the league’s third-place team, although it let Fountain Valley off the hook.

“Esperanza was serving us tough and playing good defense,” Fountain Valley Coach Lori Biller said. “We told the guys that they would have to fight harder for this one than they had for any match all season.”

Esperanza took the 2-1 lead behind senior Ryan Rex (20 kills, three blocks) and Alleman (14 kills, five blocks), who pounded away in the middle, and sophomores Jason Dillard (16 kills) and Dan Harrington (13 kills), who blasted from the outside.

But after Domingo received a red card in Game 4 for disputing a call that eventually went in Fountain Valley’s favor, Esperanza lost some steam over the reversed call. Fountain Valley won 18 of the next 26 points to close out the match.