HS Pics: St Mary's (Berkeley) at O'Dowd (Oakland)

[BearClause]

I'm not much on high school volleyball, but this one seemed like it was going to be really good. Last season Bishop O'Dowd lost to Campolindo in a tight 5-gamer in the CIF NCS D-III championship match, and eventually lost to St Francis (Sacramento) in the CIF D-III playoffs. St Mary's was CIF NCS D-IV as well as CIF D-IV NorCal champs. They lost to Francis Parker in 3 games at the CIF D-IV final.

O'Dowd's top player is Miami-bound Ariell Cooke (#16 with the short hair). However - they had an extremely balanced lineup and were playing well in all facets of the game. St Mary's has a certain star player, and I leave it to the good people here to figure out who that might be.

There's that one photo of St Mary's head coach Jon Segall where you can't see his face behind his players in the huddle. I sort of included that as a joke, and I deliberately didn't include anything where his face is clearly visible or otherwise in focus.

O'Dowd won 25-15, 26-24, 25-20.

www.pbase.com/bearclause/smchsatbod06

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[GatorVball]

thanks for the pics. Does Murrey have any help or is she basically a one woman show for St. Mary's?

[BearClause]

gatorvball said:

thanks for the pics. Does Murrey have any help or is she basically a one woman show for St. Mary's?

OMG - you figured it out!

I don't know how the St Mary's team was doing while TM was held out because of her injury for most of the season. The rest of the team could dig, but their front-row was putting up way too many single blocks all night and didn't give them much of a chance at times. I don't know if you can attribute that to an off-night, facing perhaps their stiffest competition of the year, or a combination. TM was pretty much a one-woman wrecking crew, but the O'Dowd backrow players managed to dig quite a few of her heat-seeking missles. I'm pretty sure they were a more balanced team last season when they had middle Natalie Bogan (now tearing it up at Rice). Murrey was the only player with a jump serve, she would string something like 3-4 aces in a row, and that serve was the only thing really keeping it close. She eventually played middle to shore up their block, but I guess that wasn't enough.

[GatorVball]

thanks for the info.

Murrey is quite a talent. I watched her play this summer in the NORCECA. She could play in college right now, she's that good. Whoever lands her in 08 will be very happy.

[BearClause]

gatorvball said:

thanks for the info.

Murrey is quite a talent. I watched her play this summer in the NORCECA. She could play in college right now, she's that good. Whoever lands her in 08 will be very happy.

I saw her play as a freshman at the age of 14. Certainly that team had more experienced overall talent (including older sister Brittney Murrey who is now the starting setter at UC Riverside). I thought TM's game was "college ready" back then. I think I've told the story that it was a total accident how I went in to see St Mary's. Didn't know anything about the two teams other than they were playing that night in Berkeley less than two miles from where I worked at the time. I started gushing over this phenom on the PrepVB board, but a bunch of the responses were like, "OK - it's not like she's any big secret."