Darion Graham recorded 16 kills, two blocks and a couple of aces to lead the Celebration Storm to a 25-16, 25-17 and 25-20 straight set win over Tohopekaliga in the finals of the 2023 Orange Belt Conference boys’ volleyball tournament Thursday. It was Celebration’s second consecutive OBC title and their fourth championship in five years.
“We played well tonight and that was the result of a veteran team that has played volleyball year round together for a long time,” Storm coach Pedro Davila said. “We’ll continue to work hard in the next couple of weeks and get ready to play some outstanding teams in the next couple of weeks as we get ready for the postseason.”
The match started off slowly for both teams as multiple ball-handling and hitting errors on both sides resulted in an 11-11 tie. But behind the strong play of Graham, the Storm went on an 11-2 run to build a 22-13 lead. The teams traded points before the Storm scored two straight, one a block by Graham at the net as Celebration closed out the first set.
Tohopekaliga fell behind 5-1 at the start of the second set. Tohopekaliga rallied to cut the gap to 7-6, but a 6-1 run pushed the lead back to 13-7. It was a theme that would be repeated several times in the final two games, as Tohopekaliga – behind the strong play of Lucas Nieves – fought back to 14-13 only to see a return error followed by two Diego Rivera aces and a Daniel Santiago kill to push the lead back to 18-13.
The Storm scored seven of the next 11 points to close out the game and take a 2-0 lead.
Tohopekaliga jumped out to a 3-0 lead to start the final set, but once again the Tigers would go cold as the Storm took advantage of several ball handling errors and some shaky Tiger defense to go on a 12-2 run to take a 12-5 lead.
Once again the Tigers fought back to within 14-13, only to see the Storm push the lead back to 21-15. From there, the closest Tohopekaliga would get would be within two points at 20-18 but the Storm would end the match on a 7-2 run to earn the sweep.
“I guess that sort of answers the question who the best team in the county is for now,” Tohopekaliga coach Eric Capestany quipped. “They came in fired up from the beginning and we were flat and simply could not get into any type of rhythm. Give Celebration a lot of credit though, the stepped on the gas and never really let up.”
In addition to the big game from Graham, Santiago has seven kills and Rivera had two kills and three aces. Eliel Salva had eight kills and two blocks for the Tigers, while Nieves had eight kills.
With the win, Celebration went to 10-8 on the season and has six regular season matches left this season. Three are against top FHSAA ranked top 20 teams, including No. 2 Southwest (14-2), No. 7 Miami (11-5) and No. 20 Tampa Bay HEAT (12-4). The Storm has already played six top 25 teams this season.
“If you do not win your district you have no chance to gain an at-large bid unless you play a great schedule and that is what we always try to do,” Davila said. “At the end of the day your regular season record does not matter. What matters is either winning your district or playing a tough enough schedule to keep your ranking up.”
Tohopekaliga is 13-7 and also has a tough schedule in front of them, including games next week with state-ranked No. 8 Freedom (14-2) and No. 16 Lake Nona (11-5).
