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Either Monta Vista or Homestead will compete in Saturday's Central Coast Section Division I boys volleyball semifinals at Independence High in San Jose.
The Cupertino neighbors and Santa Clara Valley Athletic League De Anza Division rivals, who already have put together excellent seasons, were scheduled to square off in a CCS quarterfinal match on May 10 at Homestead, following a match between top seed St. Francis (25-2) and either No. 9 Leigh or No. 8 Archbishop Mitty.
The Matadors earned the No. 5 seed in the 10-team tourney after going 29-4 under coach Paul Chiu this spring, including 9-3 and third place in the De Anza Division.
Coach Ed Mattson's Homestead squad finished a notch better than Monta Vista in the De Anza standings at 10-2 and 25-7 overall. The Mustangs finished second to Mountain View (11-1, 29-4), the No. 2 seed in the CCS D-I event. Homestead and Monta Vista split their two regular season meetings, each scoring a 3-0 sweep at home.
Homestead relied heavily this season on the power game of 6-foot-7, senior outside hitter Chet Radish along with senior middles Ben McClaughrey (6-foot-7) and Ganesh Elie (6-foot-8). Sophomore setter Bryan Erickson, junior libero Sam Babakan and sophomore hitter Joel Kitchen also have been key players for the Mustangs. Other players in the Homestead line-up this season were seniors Joaquin Lozano and Kyle Pon, juniors Charles Zhang, David Lee and Ron Yehoshua, sophomore Parsa Rezvani and freshman Jay Slaney.
Sophomore hitter Ryan Manley often was the go-to player for Monta Vista this season. Other team members were seniors Avery Hua, Alex Balus, Eddy Wang, Jeffery Zhang and Brandon Tiongson, juniors Cory Low, Derrick Chiu, James Whall, Nick Chen, Atharva Fulay, Ryan Louie and Matthew Lem and sophomore Kevin Szelong.
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