PROVIDENCE HIGH ? One team knows how to win and the other is still learning.
That's just one reason why the host Providence High boys' volleyball team easily dispatched Bellarmine-Jefferson in three games Wednesday in a nonleague match.
When the 55-minute nonleague match was over, Providence had notched an impressive 25-18, 25-7, 25-14 victory against the Guards, who managed to play well in only the first game.
There were brief times when the Pioneers struggled in the opening stanza, but for the most part, Providence was able to dominate.
Providence, the No. 2-ranked team in the CIF Southern Section Division V, wanted to set the tone early.
"I thought Bell-Jeff came out and played well," Providence Coach James Jimenez said. "We never want to take any team for granted. Any time we play Bell-Jeff it's always going to be big."
Jimenez said even with the one-sided scores, his team was prepared to extend itself to five games.
"When we play nonleague matches, we try to think of them as practices," he said. "Actually, every match is like a practice because we're always looking to improve.
"Our first goal is to win league. Our next goal is to win the division."
In the opening game, Bell-Jeff (8-5) jumped out to a 2-0 lead, before stretching it to 12-9, and then 14-10.
"We came to play today," Bell-Jeff Coach Miguel Segura said. "That's something we haven't always done. We played well up until the 16th point, and then everything got away from us. We couldn't hit and we couldn't pass."
For whatever reason, the Pioneers (9-1), then outscored the Guards, 15-4, the rest of the game and dominated the other two.
When Providence would start to struggle, senior outside hitter Alex Knopper rallied the troops. Knopper had his usual solid outing with 15 kills. Though not overly vocal, Knopper displayed his leadership skills by drilling balls past defenders.
"I think against a club like Bell-Jeff, you have to keep up your energy level, and that's not always easy," Knopper said. "I played OK [Wednesday], but I made some mistakes.
"My job is to make sure that if the other players make a mistake, I catch it. [Wednesday] when I made mistakes, they did the same thing for me. I try not to make any mistakes."
In the third game, Providence marched out to a 7-0 lead and then pulled ahead, 15-1, before Bell-Jeff's Chris Lopez scored on tap over the net. The Pioneers advanced to a 19-3 lead, but the Guards weren't about to wilt, crawling to within 20-8.
