Folsom sweeps Rocklin for second Sac-Joaquin Section D-1 volleyball title in a row

Folsom High School's girls volleyball team trailed Rocklin in sets two and three during Saturday night's Sac-Joaquin Section Division I championship match. Midway through set three, Folsom libero Alana Black ran into and nearly tripped over fellow junior Lauren Kim during a wild rally that included lunging, diving save after lunging, diving save. Both laughed as the top-seeded Bulldogs (34-7) kept the ball airborne before powering down another kill en route to a 3-0 sweep of the Thunder (39-7) to culminate a long fall day of section finals in volleyball and flag football at Cosumnes River College. "Our practices sometimes have hectic moments like that, but it's prepared us for moments like that, and we rely on our teammates and we trust them that if we get the ball up and do our job, at least they're gonna have our backs," Black said after the Bulldogs received their championship banner and posed for team photos. "Winning back to back I feel honored to be part of such a good team." Folsom (34-7) and Rocklin (39-7) split two matches in sharing the Sierra Foothill League championship, each sweeping on the road. They're as evenly matched as it gets. No serve or swing is wasted. Folsom seniors Avery Masters, Addison Smith and Makaylin Santos exchanged bombs and blocks with Rocklin sophomores Sidney Jones and Iliya Little in the rubber match, and no play is ever done until it's done. Black, who moved from setter to libero this season, took out a CIF Sac-Joaquin Section sign to save a ball that the Bulldogs turned into a point in the second set. "I wish you could see us in practice," Masters told Gold Mountain California News Media. "We're always smiling, we're always having a good time. We genuinely love each other so much. In practice, we go at it. We're very, very competitive. In practice it translates to here, and no matter what, we always have each other." Rocklin erased a 6-0 deficit to start the match and took its first lead 20-19 on a Folsom error. The match from there was tight with no lengthy runs, just a back-and-forth battle between two of the top programs in the greater Sacramento area – and California, for that matter (Folsom is ranked eighth in the state by MaxPreps, Rocklin 11th). The Bulldogs won the first set 26-24 on a Rocklin error, the second set 25-23 on a tap by Masters and the third set 25-18 on an exclamation-point kill by Masters. Fifth-year Folsom coach Devin Elmore savored the program's second straight section title. "It's the best feeling in the world," he said. "Rocklin is amazing. They're coached by probably one of the best to ever do it. Bret's on his own standards, ya know? So it really forces us to lock in. We spend a lot of hours in the film room, and it just came down to execution. Each team was making a decent amount of errors. We did a great job not letting the errors affect us and even when Rocklin got up big, we stayed steady, we stayed aggressive, and that allowed us to start stringing points together near the end." Next for both teams is the CIF State Championships with regional matches beginning Tuesday, Nov. 10. Pairings are scheduled to be released today. This is familiar territory for the Bulldogs and Thunder. Folsom lost to San Jose-Archbishop Mitty in the Northern California Regional Open Division semifinals last year. Rocklin then defeated Mitty in the final and went on to lose to Santa Ana-Mater Dei in the state final. Rocklin coach Bret Almazan-Cezar knows great success on this biggest of high school volleyball stages. A former national coach of the year, he led Mitty to 11 state championships. Almazan-Cezar recorded career victory No. 1,000 in October. Graduation took a big bite out of last year's roster, but he has this season's team of 14 – including just four seniors – right back in the thick of the action.