GILBERT – Cienega's boys volleyball team got as close as it could to being in the state final without actually getting there. Several times.
Despite leading 2-1 in games and 24-20 in the fourth set, the second-seeded Bobcats couldn’t get that final point and having lost the momentum fell 3-2 to No. 3 Glendale Ironwood on Thursday night, in the Division II state semifinals at Gilbert Campo Verde.
“It was tough, we were just making constant mistakes, which was really bringing us down,” said Cienega senior Isaiah Murphy. “So it was hard to get back on top.”
Ironwood outlasted Cienega 25-22, 15-25, 21-25, 32-30, 15-4, to advance to Saturday’s final against Chandler Seton Catholic.
Cienega (28-11) was almost there but had to rally itself, failing to get its offense quite in gear at the outset but then found its attack and won the second and third sets convincingly.
The Bobcats took advantage of Ironwood unforced errors and led 17-10 at one point in the fourth set. Ironwood (28-7) even had a rotation error when the scorer’s table reported that the same player served twice while Cienega had scored a point in between. That could have taken many teams out of the game.
“At that point I thought that maybe we were going to get this,” Cienega coach Heather Mott said. “But that’s volleyball. It’s a game that can go up and down real fast.”
That happened at 24-20. Ironwood got a kill and Cienega made an unforced error. The Eagles continued going to their go-to hitter, David Kisiel, who came into the night having had more than 550 kills in 34 matches, and 48 on Thursday night.
“He’s just a great outside hitter,” Murphy said of Kisiel. “He was giving us the business all game. It was really hard to block him.”
Ironwood rallied again, Kisiel had back-to-back kills to tie it at 24. Three times Cienega had a chance to put the game and match away but came up short. After Frankie Trujillo put the ball away for a 25-24 lead, Walker Frighetti was called on a carry. Murphy put the Bobcats up 26-25 but Kisiel tied it up again. Skyler Cavanaugh twice got Cienega to match point only to be erased by a service error and another Kisiel kill.
The Bobcats fell behind 29-28 at one point but Skyler Cavanaugh put away a surprise kill to stave off a loss. Murphy again got a kill to tie it at 30. But Kisiel got the last two points from the opposite side of the court from his normal powerful position and Ironwood had forced a fifth game.
The Eagles scored the first seven points of the final set and never looked back. Kisiel had 10 kills by himself in the final set.
“They went on a run, it was too hard to come back,” Murphy said.
