SAN JOSE — In baseball, a triple-digit fastball can be almost unhittable at times.
In volleyball, the analog is when a hitter gets so hot, it almost doesn’t matter what the opposing block does. Archbishop Mitty’s William Dryden approached that level of excellence on Saturday during the CCS Open Division championship game at Harker.
Facing off against St. Francis in the title match, the Monarchs called upon Dryden 42 times to finish off a point. And he came through 22 times, keying Mitty’s early two-set lead.
After the Lancers responded with a tight win in set three, the fourth set was anyone’s game. Mitty came through in extra points, finishing off a 3-1 win (25-18, 25-17, 23-25, 28-26) with a narrow victory in the fourth set.
The result was validation for the Monarchs, who had beaten every team they faced in the Open bracket at least once this year. Still, Mitty had to go out and do it again with the pressure on.
It did, and now the Monarchs have their first boys volleyball section title since 2013.
“This whole season, we’ve been dominant,” said Dryden, who is committed to UC Santa Barbara. “We’ve beaten every team. We’ve beaten (St. Francis) three times, so it just felt how it should be. And then in that third set, we kind of crumbled a little bit. But we got back on it.”
Mitty (37-2) has sustained success this season despite the departure of coach Lacey Gera to maternity leave midseason. Assistant coach Gregg Gallegos stepped in to run the Monarchs’ practices and games, and they haven’t missed a beat.
“We’ve been peaking at the right time,” Gallegos said. “That’s for sure. We’re playing really good volleyball right now. Excited for NorCals, but it’s been a great season so far.”
Mitty is a powerhouse in seemingly just about every sport, but it had been over a decade since the Monarchs had even made a CCS final in boys volleyball. Last year, Mitty lost 3-1 to Santa Cruz in the Open semifinals.
This year’s group wasn’t going to be denied.
“We have a very – most of the time – very mature group of guys, so they make it easy on me, and they’re just totally invested,” Gallegos said. “They know that this season can be really special. They work super hard, and they totally deserve everything.”
Junior Oscar Klement played a supplementary role for the Monarchs, finishing 11 kills with an efficient .368 hitting average. Despite Dryden’s starring role, it was a true team effort for Mitty, a talented group on a mission to forge a new legacy.
“We know that we can go out and beat literally any team, no matter what,” Dryden said. “The end of the third set, we kind of just folded. We got a little too comfortable, and that was our problem. Once we realized that we actually had to keep going, keep trying hard, we got ‘em.”
St. Francis (24-14) is a proud program that has made three of the four Open finals contested, winning the title in 2022. The Lancers will still be a force to reckon with in the CIF NorCal tournament, but Mitty was a cut above on Saturday.
“I love those kind of WCAL championship battles,” St. Francis coach Jonah Carson said. “Those are great. You’ve got to problem-solve their setter and their really good outside hitter, and there’s no one solution for guys that are that good. So we kept working through different options and things we thought were going to work as the match went on.”
The Lancers will be spoken for in the NorCals, but Mitty has the look of the odds-on favorite. Dryden is a big reason for that. When he’s on, there isn’t much the other team can do to stop him.
“They played really, really clean in the first two sets,” Carson said. “I felt like we made them a little uncomfortable later on. But when Will’s on fire, it’s tough.”
Mitty is excited to now have the opportunity to chase down a spot in the first-ever CIF boys volleyball state championship game, which will conclude the season by matching up the winners of the NorCal and SoCal regional tournaments.
“Last year was a great year, and we knew that this year could be even more special,” Gallegos said. “We could probably go a little bit further. And the fact that there’s a state championship this year for the first time ever, that’s the new peak that we want to get to. And so that’s the goal.
“I expect a lot more volleyball. I don’t want our season to end yet.”
