BELLAMINE-JEFFERSON HIGH — Few teams have been able to stop Bellarmine-Jefferson girls’ volleyball standout Jessica Alvarez this season.
Along with her blistering kills and her consistent blocking, the senior outside hitter also possesses a rocket jump-serve that often is too much for opponents to handle.
In a CIF Southern Section Division IVA first-round playoff match Tuesday at Bell-Jeff, Alvarez’s talents helped the Guards earn a 25-19, 25-11, 19-25, 25-15 win against Kern Valley.
The win earns Bell-Jeff (17-9) a second-round match Thursday against the winner of the Big Bear-Montclair Prep contest at a site to be determined.
“Our team really wants to make some noise in the playoffs, and that means winning some matches,” said Bell-Jeff Coach Miguel Segura, whose team won a Santa Cruz League title. “We want to see how far we can go,”
With Alvarez playing as well as she did Tuesday, the Guards could find more success in the postseason. Alvarez tallied 13 kills and 14 aces, including an amazing nine in a row.”
“I have been working on my jump-serve for about two years now,” Alvarez said. “I practice it a lot.”
As happy as Segura was with his team’s play for most of the match, he was disappointed with the way his Guards let the Broncs (7-10) back in the third game.
“If we play the rest of the playoffs like we did in that third game, we’re not going past the second round,” Segura said. “We played terrible in that game.”
The Guards came out fired up in the first game, and despite committing nine hitting errors, was able to take control late.
With Kern Valley leading, 13-12, Bell-Jeff went on an 8-1 run to grab the momentum.
The second game saw the Guards dominate, as Alvarez’s nine straight aces gave the team a commanding 22-4 lead.
After the meltdown in the second game, Bell-Jeff got back to business in the fourth to close out the contest.
“We just have to make sure we don’t lose our focus and let up on teams like we did in that third game,” Segura said.
