River Islands hosted one of the top teams in the Sac-Joaquin Section on Tuesday at EPIC Academy.
The youthful Riptide had its moments but ultimately had no answer for the likes of 6-foot-2 middle blocker Kai Dampier and the rest of Holt Academy in a 13-25, 14-25, 22-25 loss.
The visiting Bobcats (5-0, 21-1 overall) from Stockton established themselves as the runaway favorite in the Central California
Dampier led them with 15 kills and five blocks, while David Chavez (13 kills) and Brandon Cortes (eight kills, three blocks) balancing the Holt Academy attack from the outside. Nephi Vang added five aces on 12 service points.
“That’s the best team we’re going to face all season,” Riptide coach Nick Grabowski said. “We’ll see them again later in the year, so we’ll be prepared for next time. It would be nice to get healthy — we have the sick bug going around. I mean, we can’t use that as an excuse, we just keep bouncing back. That’s the type of program we’re building here. It’s the next-man-up mentality and keep pushing.”
River Islands (3-1, 9-4), a school with no senior class, was down four players.
Sophomore outside hitter Eric Irving provided a spark, finishing with 10 kills, six service points and a block. David Chua added eight kills, a block and an ace. Urijah DeOcampo, the lone freshman between the two teams, orchestrates the offense at setter. He and sophomore libero Taray Irving had some big digs that helped the Riptide compete in the third set.
“We were practicing with all of our players, and once we found out they weren’t going to make it for this game, it was a little intimidating,” Irving said. “Once we got into a rhythm, we felt a lot more comfortable with our competition.”
The Riptide surely made things interesting in the end. They took their first lead of the match at 3-2 in the third set on a kill from J.R. Payopay. The margin widened to 18-10 at one point, but the set changed when Dampier rotated back to the front row. He ignited Holt’s comeback charge with three kills, and back-to-back spikes from Arnav Nath and Chavez knotted it at 20-20. Cortes put the Bobcats up for good with a block, and it was his kill that ended the contest.
“It was the same thing we did against Lathrop,” Grabowski said, referencing his team’s recent four-set loss to the reigning Western Athletic Conference champion. “We know we could compete with anyone. We play against some dogs, but we have a bunch of dogs on our team, too.”
