Other priorities hurt Warriors' boys volleyball season

Volleyball requires individual players to perform as a team, and some of Fallbrook High School’s 2024 boys volleyball players had priorities which led Fallbrook coach Chip Patterson to assess the season as disappointing.

“A lot of it has to do with attitude, commitment to volleyball,” Patterson said.

“Some players were not committed,” Patterson said. “That sort of stuff killed us.”

The Warriors’ season ended April 30 at Patrick Henry High School. The first-round CIF Division III playoff match was a 25-18, 25-18, 25-13 Patriots victory.

“We were probably the more dominant team. We were missing two starting players,” Patterson said.

Those two players missed the match due to a reason not related to volleyball, college, or health. “We put younger players in the game,” Patterson said. “We didn’t play our normal starting six, and that hurts.”

Patterson added three junior varsity players to the post-season roster. Another starter had been lost to academic ineligibility, and although he was cleared to play April 30 he did not practice the day before.

The loss to Patrick Henry gave Fallbrook a final season record of 15‑20. The Warriors were 6-4 in Valley League play and finished third in the standings.

“All year we were up and down,” Patterson said.

Another grades release and academic ineligibility period prevented some players from competing during parts of February and March. “That will always be detrimental,” Patterson said.

Patterson can accept absences due to college visits or health. However, illness deprived the Warriors of a starting outside hitter for the March 15-16 Del Lago Firebird Invitational tournament in which the Warriors won two matches and lost four. Fallbrook was 3-3 at the March 8-9 Falcon Varsity Tourney hosted by O’Farrell Charter School.

The March 8 tournament win over St. Joseph Academy was Fallbrook’s first victory of the season. “We lost six matches off the bat,” Patterson said.

Escondido won the 2024 Valley League championship with a 10-0 record in league competition. The Cougars’ two matches against the Warriors were a 25-18, 25-16, 25-22 triumph March 14 at Fallbrook and a 25-12, 20-25, 25-17, 25-17 home win April 16.

“We could have beat them,” Patterson said. “The games were close.”

San Pasqual was second in the Valley League standings with a 7-3 mark. Fallbrook defeated the Golden Eagles in the first round of league play April 4 in Fallbrook, taking a 27-25, 25-20, 25-21 victory. Had the Warriors won the April 23 match at San Pasqual, Fallbrook would have finished second in the standings, but the Golden Eagles were on the winning end of that 25-19, 27-25, 25-17 match.

Ramona was 4-6 for fourth place in the standings. The Bulldogs won a March 19 home match against Fallbrook in 25-23, 25-17, and 25-20 sets. The two teams played April 11 in Fallbrook and the Warriors prevailed in that 25-16, 23-25, 25-17, 25-12 match. “We played them the second time with all our starters,” Patterson said.

“We had no consistency,” Patterson said. “There were probably seven matches that we had that we shouldn’t have lost.”

The Warriors closed out regular season play April 25 at home against Oceanside and defeated the Pirates in 25-21, 25-18, and 25-20 games. Senior Night festivities preceded that match. Fallbrook had four seniors on this year’s team including the two starters who missed the playoff match.

The CIF playoff selection and seeding meeting took place April 26. Patrick Henry, which had a regular season record of 12-14 and was 6-4 in City League competition for third place in that league, was given the fifth seed in the Division III playoffs. “That’s a good team,” Patterson said.

Fallbrook, whose 14-17 record in 2023 was not sufficient to give the Warriors a berth in the CIF Division III playoffs, was seeded 12th in this year’s postseason tournament.

The Patriots had 35 kills and 11 serving aces in the playoff match against Fallbrook. “We knew what they were going to run,” Patterson said.

Executing against that style of play eluded the Warriors, as had been the case for most of the season. “We were not the best blocking team this year,” Patterson said.

Fallbrook’s 2022 team finished with a 17-15 record including a first-round Division III playoff loss and a 7-3 Valley League record which shared second place in the standings.

“It’s disappointing,” Patterson said of the 2024 season. “We should have been better.”