Calvary Chapel punches ticket to CIF semifinals

Calvary Chapel players Andrew Rubio (No. 24) and Blake Roemheld (No. 11) go up for the block against a Whittier Christian player (Josh Chang) in a CIF D9 Quarterfinal match. Calvary Chapel won, 3-1.

(Photo by Riley Cerebe)

DOWNEY — For the second consecutive season, the Calvary Chapel (Downey) Grizzlies Boys Volleyball team has advanced to the CIF-Southern Section D9 Semifinals with a 3-1 win over visiting Whittier Christian Wednesday night (May 7).

Calvary won with scores of 25-14, 25-18, 19-25, 25-12.

With the win, the Grizzlies will travel to play Beverly Hills (12-16) in the semifinals, which defeated Yeshiva University of Los Angeles (YULA) in a quarterfinal match by the scores of 19-25, 9-25, 25-13, 25-21, 15-11. Date and time not available at press time.

Leading the way for the Grizzlies was freshman middle blocker Blake Roemheld with a team-leading 12 kills and senior Corey De Wit with 10. Junior setter Luke Neff added five kills. Neff also had a game-high 29 assists, which puts him over the 200 assist mark for the season with 216. Senior outside hitter Jonah Heinz added three assists.

Three players were in double figures for digs – De Wit (18), Heinz (17) and senior libero Stephen So (14). For the season, De Wit leads with 149, followed by Heinz with 113 and So with 108.

Overall, Roemheld leads this season by a single kill over De Wit, 84-83. That includes Wednesday’s quarterfinal match.

“All I can do is thank the Lord for (going back to the semifinals),” third-year Calvary Chapel Boys Volleyball coach Jeremiah Mitte said. “It hasn’t hit home yet, because of everything that’s going on now. It probably won’t hit home until (Thursday).

“I’m glad my boys came and played as hard as they did, because of everything that was brought on (Wednesday). There was a lot of people talking whether we could do it or not. My kids are very competitive, and they did it.

“We are excited to get there and have a lot of things to excel and improve on before we get to the semi’s.”

Head coach Mitte, who graduated from Calvary Chapel in 2008 and played one year for the program in its first year after being reorganized, is in his fourth year from 2021-‘22 when the program had its third rebirth at the school. He has been the head coach for the last three seasons. In the ’22 and ’23 seasons they qualified for CIF but lost in the first round both times.

After graduation in ‘08, Mitte helped out for the 2009 season then went off to college and came back on a couple of occasions. He said of the sport of volleyball in his younger days, “I fell in love with the sport after my senior season.”

Mitte is assisted by Chris Quintero and his wife Elyssa Quintero, who is also the head girls volleyball coach.

Last year the Grizzlies, who had a great season going 19-8-1 overall, advanced to the semifinals in a match against league rival Avalon and lost, 3-0. They experienced a little sickness on their way over to Catalina, which hampered their on-the-court play slightly.

With that success last season, it rolled over to this year with a few key players leading the way.

Neff became a leader in his sophomore year last season controlling the front line that has carried over to this season. As Mitte said, “he makes most of the on-court decisions out there. He controls the hitters.”

Calvary Chapel, along with Western Christian, Avalon and Southlands Christian, all qualified for the playoffs from the Academy League this season.

Including third place Calvary Chapel, two other Academy League teams – Avalon (2nd place) and Southlands Christian (4th place) – were in the D8 quarterfinal matches Wednesday. League champion Western Christian lost in the first round of the D4 playoffs.

Avalon defeated Alta Loma 3-2 and Southlands lost to Katella 3-2.

As for the quarterfinal win on Wednesday, the Grizzlies won the first two sets to take a 2-0 lead.

Both sets were back and forth in scoring through most of the fist half of the set.

However, in the first set, Calvary Chapel had a two-point, 13-11 lead, but completely took over as they finished the set with a 12-3 run for the 25-14 win.

Senior middle blocker Alejandro Sactic and Roemheld led with three kills each.

They each had a kill in the early going of the set to set the pace for the Grizzlies.

“I never thought that I would be this good, but all glory to God, I didn’t think we were going to go this far, and it’s been really cool,” Roemheld said.

He credits Mitte for developing him so far this season, as his only volleyball before this year was not team related.

“On our kills, it just hypes us up and gives us a lot of energy knowing that we’re doing good and it just helps us,” he added.

Roemheld said of Mitte and his knowledge and leadership, “He’s an amazing coach. When I came here, he really helped me as I couldn’t even get the ball over the net. And now a few months in I’m hitting pretty good.

“He just taught me almost everything I know.”

In the second set, there were eight ties, with the last one 12-12, before the Grizzlies gradually began to pull away.

De Wit had a kill to lead, 13-12, which was followed by a big, boisterous kill a couple of plays later by Roemheld to lead, 15-13.

That led to a 10-5 run in the set, finishing with a Roemheld kill to win, 25-18.

Roemheld and sophomore opposite led with five and three kills, respectively, in the set.

Then the roof started to cave in a bit in the third set when the Heralds went toe-to-toe with Calvary all the way to an 18-18 tie, which was the eighth of the set.

They finished with a flurry of wins (7-1) to win going away. Most of the Whittier Christian points came off of Grizzlies miscues and errors.

However, the Grizzlies held a 2-1 lead, and that loss fired them up for the clinching fourth set.

“The third set, we fell behind so the fourth set we got annoyed that they took one from us, so we came all out in the fourth set,” said Neff, of the blitz in the final set.

What might have fired up the Grizzlies in the third set was a passionate speech by assistant coach Elyssa Quintero. It definitely carried over to the fourth set for the determined group of Calvary players.

The final set was only close through the first nine points, with Calvary holding a 5-4 lead before the flood gates opened.

A kill by Rubio and a service ace by Heinz gave the Grizzlies a four-point, 8-4 lead. A couple of plays later was a net error by Calvary, to lead, 9-5, then the Heralds went cold. The Grizzlies, behind the serving of freshman defensive specialist Samuel Sandoval, won seven consecutive points to lead 16-5 and for all intents and purposes, the match was all over but the shouting.

Highlighting the run, there were two big kills by De Wit and solo kills by Sactic and Neff.

“A lot of it is momentum, and I think what really changed it was when my setter (Neff) set it from across the court to me and I got the kill off of it. I think that’s what really switched it up.”

De Wit said of the team and his time with the program, “I love everyone on the team, and our coach just taking us all through this,” he said. “We wouldn’t have gotten this far without anyone. I’m grateful we got this far.

“I’m glad I got to spend four years with all of them. I’m sad I couldn’t do it last year for the seniors and it might be the time now. We just got to keep fighting.”

Said Neff of the team’s success, “hopefully this year, we can take it further. As you can see by our banners, we haven’t gone this far in a while.

The Grizzlies built up the lead to 16 points, 23-7 and with De Wit serving, he was so wound up he sailed a serve way up and out of bounds for a service error. No harm.

After a brief five-point outburst by the Heralds, to trail, 24-12, Roemheld ended it all.

Mitte said of the final winning point by Roemheld, “When we were at 24-12 (match-winning point) at that point, I didn’t tell them, I was just saying, ‘give it to the middle, give it to No. 11 (Roemheld), let him just end this off’ and he did. And my setter (Neff) was probably thinking the exact same thing. Luke (Neff) set it and Blake (Roemheld) killed it.”

Roemheld simply said of his game-winning kill, “It was amazing, it felt so good.”

Match over. Bring on Beverly Hills.

The Grizzlies actually have won four league titles from 2009 to ’12, but one banner in the gym is missing……a CIF Champion. That remains to be seen in the coming days.

What they said

Jonah Heinz, Calvary senior outside hitter: “The difference in these two years and three years ago was a lot of us went to clubs to practice to get better.

Last year was just a good team, but we didn’t have the energy. This year was totally different with the new energy with the freshmen coming in and always being hyped.

They are great players. Blake (Roemheld) and Samuel (Sandoval) just kept on working and working.

All the freshmen asked to stay after practice.

It’s so exciting with coach, especially how the team was and how he brought the team up. It feels amazing. This is a feeling I wouldn’t have felt last year and the crowd, both home and visitor, was really great. I always love a big crowd.

Our assistant coach (Elyssa Quintero) dug into us (late third set) and she’s not the one that normally yells like that and when she does that it really wakes us up.”