More than just the rivalry, revenge, history and power points were at stake as Canyon del Oro's boys volleyball team hosted Ironwood Ridge on Tuesday night.
Thanks to CDO’s 3-1 (20-25, 25-23, 25-22, 25-23) win against the visiting Nighthawks, I-Ridge coach Bill Lang will have to wear his old Dorados letterman's jacket and take a photo wearing it.
Lang helped start and played on CDO’s first volleyball team before going on to form I-Ridge's volleyball program. There, David Garwacki played for Lang on the Nighthawks’ first team and coached under him before taking over at CDO.
“We like to make it interesting, we like to make it fun,” Garwacki said. “We had the bet during the girls’ season and I had to wear my Ironwood Ridge letterman jacket to school because I teach on campus and it was a little humiliating but it’s all on good sport.”
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The win is CDO's first over I-Ridge since April 1, 2010 and it snapped an 11-match losing streak to the Nighthawks. It also avenged a five-set loss in the first round of last year’s Division I state tournament loss. Garwacki said they talk about last year’s result every day.
“Really exciting game, we knew it would be,” said Garwacki, the team's third-year coach. “This is one of those matches that we marked on the calendar, ever since they knocked out us out of state by two points in the fifth set.”
Lang’s Class of ’89 CDO letterman jacket and Garwacki’s class of ’05 I-Ridge jacket hung behind the scorer’s table during the match. Heading into the showdown, I-Ridge was No. 6 in the Division II rankings and CDO was ninth.
“It’s a huge rivalry, especially because of the coaches,” said CDO senior libero Jacob Mapp. “Their's coached ours and so it’s extremely huge. Fortunately we were able to keep down the trash talk and keep it classy.”
The visiting Nighthawks won the first set 25-20 but after trailing early in the second set, CDO rallied to win 25-23 and then won the last two 25-22 and 25-23.
“We were a little emotional and we were emotional the whole time, that’s the kind of team we are, but we really started focusing in the second, third and fourth sets and we started being positive on the court with each other,” Garwacki said.
Canyon Del Oro led 19-13 in the fourth set but I-Ridge rallied to get within one point of a tie before CDO finished off the Nighthawks.
Mapp and senior setter Thomas Koppy said the victory was especially big for the seniors. In 2013, CDO posted a 10-26 record.
“We were a bad program about four years ago, we hadn’t beaten them in a long time,” Koppy said. “Those four years we worked hard and made this rivalry big and the students knew it and everyone came out and supported us.”
