Historic volleyball win for Petaluma

<p>Sometimes a champion cruises through the competition like a shark through saltwater. And sometimes you need “the error game.”</p><!-- Nothing to do. The paragraph has already been output --><p>Ben Stern has been running his Petaluma volleyball players through a drill he calls the error game all year at practice. It's basic six-on-six volleyball, with one caveat: any mental mistake or breakdown in technique — a service-receive error, a free-ball error — sets your score back to zero.</p><p>The drill teaches consistency and poise, and the top-seeded Trojans needed every ounce of those traits in defeating No. 2 Redwood here Saturday night, 25-22, 15-25, 18-25, 25-22, 15-7 in a fairly epic North Coast Section Div. II championship game. It was Petaluma's first NCS title.</p><p>“It feels amazing,” said setter Hayley Ross, one of the Trojans' seven seniors and, along with hitter Kaitlyn Dunaway, a key four-year starter. “There are no words to describe it.”</p><p>“I'm very proud,” Stern said. “I've been talking to them lately about how you're not always going to play your best. I really don't think we were at our best tonight. But we focused on the things we had to do correctly.”</p><p>The Trojans were co-champs of the Sonoma County League this season with Analy, and were awarded with the No. 1 seed. But that didn't stop Stern from tinkering with success. After keeping his rotation steady for most of the season, he changed it up against Maria Carrillo on Wednesday and even more against Redwood, basing the playing time on performance.</p><p>It worked. The technically proficient Dunaway was the star of the show, as usual, with 15 kills and five aces. But Stern also got a big performance from Larissa Goodanetz (eight kills, two blocks) and from Maddison Eshoo, who had seven kills and wound up anchoring the defense on the Trojans' back line, a position she hadn't played much this season.</p><p>“I was just looking for consistency. I stress how consistent she is in everything she does,” Stern said of Eshoo. “She's one of these players who just does not want to make mistakes. And she didn't. She was almost flawless.”</p><p>Petaluma (26-8) had to claw tooth and nail Saturday. The first game was a tense one with 12 ties, neither team leading by more than two points until the Trojans went up 24-21. They won two points later when Ross dinked a kill shot into the center of the Giants.</p><p>Redwood (26-7) clearly looked like the better team in the second and third games. In the second, the team from Larkspur pulled away from a 10-10 tie to win by 10 points, as the high-flying Kat Gueth began to take over the action at the net. The third game was tied 16-16 before Redwood won 9 of the final 11 points. Game 4 was another nail biter, tied 20-20 before the Trojans got the upper hand and won on Dunaway's kill shot.</p><p>Heading into the fifth game, Petaluma was definitely alive, but not looking far from dominant.</p><p>After a bit of spotty serving by both sides, however, the Trojans pumped some air into the ball. Practically before they knew it, the Giants saw their 4-3 lead morph into a 9-4 deficit. The Trojans were rolling, and they were never seriously challenged again.</p><p>It sure looked like Redwood got tired. Gueth wound up with 15 kills, five aces and four blocks, but she did most of her damage in the first three games. And the Giants had three bad serves and two net violations in Game 5. Match point came when Gueth hit one into the net.</p><p>But Redwood coach Katie Ott Pease said it had more to do with Petaluma's senior leadership and home-court advantage.</p><p>“We weren't tired. We're so well conditioned,” she said. “Petaluma played great. We made some unforced errors in the end, missed a few serves. Petaluma is senior-heavy, and I think that led the team. And their setter did a great job of spreading the ball across the net.”</p><p>Stern was in concurrence. He noted the boisterous crowd, led by a pack of Trojans football players, who were victorious over Rancho Cotate a night earlier. And he again acknowledged the veteran leadership on a team that graduated only one player from 2008.</p><p>“I look to my seniors,” Stern said. “They're the ones screaming, yelling — and coaching, every single play. I press that on my players so much. They have to do that. I can't be the cheerleader the whole time.”</p>