Four volleyball seniors lose final high school full season

Normally seniors on a high school volleyball team end their high school careers in the playoffs or at the end of the regular season if the CIF selection and seeding committee doesn't give their school a berth in the playoffs. For Fallbrook High School seniors Anthony Rayon, Logan Riggs, Logan Sim and Sean Wenzel, their high school careers ended when the CIF canceled the remainder of the spring sports season.

"It was terrible to end that way," Fallbrook coach Chip Patterson said. "They worked so hard."

The Warriors posted a 5-6 record in their truncated season which ended March 11 with a 25-21, 25-13, 25-20 home victory over Orange Glen.

"The last game we played well," Patterson said. "We played some pretty good teams. A lot of our losses came at a tournament two days after the season started."

The Warriors' season began Feb. 27 with a 25-19, 25-22, 25-10 loss at Canyon Crest. The Sweetwater Varsity Tournament was played Feb. 28-29, and Fallbrook began with a 25-20, 21-25, 15-6 win over Del Lago High School and a 25-15, 25-11 victory against High Tech High Chula Vista. Grossmont High School, which reached the 2019 CIF Division III final, concluded Fallbrook's Feb. 28 play with a 25-21, 25-18 Foothillers triumph.

Both of Fallbrook's Feb. 29 losses were against 2019 Division I playoff teams. Otay Ranch High School won 25-16 and 25-10 sets, while Pacific Ridge High School was on the winning end of the 22-25, 25-12, 15-4 score.

"All those schools were rated higher than us," Patterson said of the three tournament losses.

"They played hard," Patterson said of his players. "It just didn't happen."

Non-tournament matches end when one team wins three games. Fallbrook won three-game matches March 3 at Montgomery High School and March 5 at home against Valley Center High School. A four-game loss March 6 at Mission Hills High School was followed by a five-game Classical Academy win March 10 in Fallbrook.

The 2020 Valley League was to have consisted of Fallbrook, El Camino, Mission Vista, Oceanside, San Dieguito Academy and Valley Center high school.

"In our league we would have either been a No. 1 seed or we would have been a No. 2 seed," Patterson said. "We probably could have won league this year for the first time in a very long time."

Sim and Wenzel had both been in the program for all four years, including three seasons on the Warriors' varsity. The 2020 season was Rayon's third in the program and his first on the varsity. Riggs made both his varsity and his Fallbrook program debut this year. Wenzel played middle blocker, Rayon and Sim were outside hitters and Riggs was both an outside hitter and a right side hitter.

Sim has committed to the University of California Irvine and will try to make the Anteaters' team as a walk-on.

"Sean was being more widely recruited," Patterson said.

Wenzel has not yet chosen a college.

Sim and Wenzel were the team captains, so that senior leadership will be lost.

"It's definitely something we're going to make up for next year," Patterson said. "It's going to be hard, really."

The criterium for a varsity letter is participating in at least half the matches, so the players will receive letters for the partial season. The 2020 varsity team had 11 players.

"We look forward to next year," Patterson said. "We go from there. That's all we can do."

Joe Naiman can be reached by email at [email protected].