FHSAA tourney starts Friday after regional championship
With a couple of players nursing injuries, Celebration’s boys volleyball team had to rely on senior captain Darion Graham more than usual in Tuesday night’s regional against Horizon. Graham responded by recording a match-high 28 kills, including 12 in the final set as the Storm cruised to a 25-23, 25-15, 29-27 win to advance to this weekend’s state championship.
The Storm (21-9) plays Friday at 4 p.m. in an FHSAA quarterfinal against Winter Park (26-3) at Polk State College in Winter Haven. With a victory, the Storm would face the winner of Lake Howell/Cardinal Gibbons Saturday at 1 p.m. The title game is slated for 7 p.m. Saturday night.
Boys’ volleyball is a single classification sport in Florida, where all 175 participating schools play for one championship.
“Darion has always been a special player but he was really blossomed as a team leader this past year,” Celebration Coach Pedro Davila said. “Because of injuries, we were setting the ball to him on almost every attack and he kept responding with kill after kill. The rest of the team was really feeding off the energy he was bringing.”
Although recording the sweep, it was far from an easy victory for the Storm – who had to fight off set points in the first and third games. The first game went back-and-forth but Horizon used a 5-0 run late in the game to take a 24-21 lead. But the Storm used two Graham kills to fight off consecutive set points. Down 24-22, Libero Keith Harrison held serve for four consecutive points – ending game one with an ace for the win.
The first half of the second game remained close early, as the teams were tied at 9-9 and 11-11. Celebration went on runs of seven and three points – giving up just one point between them -- to push the lead to 20-12. Graham again led the way with seven kills in the game; while Harrison had two more aces and played spectacular defense in the back row, making numerous digs to thwart Horizon attacks.
The third set was a back-and-forth affair that required extra points to decide. Numerous lead changes and ties occurred, with neither team able to push any further ahead than three points. With the score tied 23-23, Graham’s spike attempt went wide – giving Horizon the first of two potential set points. But Celebration fought back to tie both times. After a Horizon ball handling error, Celebration had match-point at 27-26, but a J.P. Candrian block tied the game at 27-27. Graham’s 12th kill of the game gave the Storm another match point and this time Celebration was able to close the game out when Horizon’s spike attempt went wide.
“I think we are effective in close games because of our determination and fight we bring to every match,” Graham said. “When someone makes a mistake, we forget about it and move on. It was a great feeling for me and the rest of our seniors to win our final home match, especially because it means we are going to the state tournament.”
For Horizon, Candrian had 12 kills and two blocks. Jonathan Slattery added four kills and four blocks.
Davila said the closeness of the contest would serve his team well heading into the state tournament. “Make no mistake, Horizon is a very good team and this was a tough match for us,” Davila said. “If we don’t fight off those two set points, we could have been looking at a 2-1 deficit and playing for our lives in a fourth set.”
Celebration enters the tournament on a roll, having won eight straight matches. During that time they have dropped just two of 24 sets. Of the other seven teams qualifying for the state tournament, Celebration has already met three of them in the regular season. The Storm lost a four-set road match to Winter Park in its season opener on Mar. 6. The Storm lost in three to the Southwest, the No. 1 ranked team in the state on Apr. 21 and beat Hialeah, another state qualifier in a tournament in Miami on Apr. 25.
“We purposely play an extremely difficult schedule to get ready for the pressures of the state tournament,” Davila said. “We’ve already played the top team in the state (Southwest) and despite losing in three games, all of them were really close (25-20, 25-23, 25-23) and could have gone either way It won’t be easy this weekend, there are many quality teams in the state. But we believe we are one of those teams and will not be an awe of anyone.”
It will be the Storm’s fourth trip to the state championship tournament, with the last one coming in 2019. They have made it to the finals once. Davila added that the tournament will be special for this group of seniors.
“We were ranked No. 1 in the state in 2020 when Covid cancelled this group’s freshman season. It took a couple of years, but our seniors have done a fantastic job of building back our program since the pandemic and I am so proud of them.”
FHSAA STATE CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNAMET
Polk State College, Winter Haven
FRIDAY, May 19
Game 1: #8 Hialeah vs. #1 Miami Southwest, 10 a.m.
Game 2: #5 Cypress Bay vs. #4 Kings Academy, 1 p.m.
Game 3: #7 Celebration vs. #2 Winter Park, 4 p.m.
Game 4: #6 Lake Howell vs. #3 Cardinal Gibbons, 7 p.m.
SATURDAY, May 20
Game 5: Winner 1 vs. Winner 2, 10 a.m.
Game 6: Winner 3 vs. Winner 4, 1 p.m.
State championship, 7 p.m.
