It was a wild, wild week in a West Bay Athletic League that is turning into the Wild, Wild West.
Sure, first-place Sacred Heart Prep, with its unblemished league record, is clearly the gunslinger of the WBAL Foothill Division. But the race for second place, with Mercy-Burlingame, Melo School and Notre Dame-Belmont all deadlocked with 4-3 records with three matches to play.
The catalyst in this second-place logjam is last week’s head-to-head schedule, with two Daily Journal Athletes of the Week rising from the fray. Two five-set brawls, starting with Mercy’s 25-23, 20-25, 25-17, 18-25, 15-11 win over Notre Dame-Belmont. It’s the fourth time in the last five meetings between the sister schools the Crusaders have come out on top.
“We kind of continued that history from last season and kind of built up on that,” Mercy-Burlingame head coach Ray Sum said. “They’ve always kind of had that little rivalry going, so it’s good for the school to keep that up. … It’s a big deal for them.”
Two days later, Menlo complicated the Foothill Division standings by delivering a five-set thriller of its own, defeating Mercy by overcoming a lopsided first set to win it 10-25, 25-19, 27-25, 23-25, 15-8 — a match that featured both Mercy’s Anna Snigorenko and Menlo’s Brooke Dombkowski, the Daily Journal’s co-Athletes of the Week
Snigorenko was nails in both matches. She scored a team-high 19 kills in the win over Notre Dame. But her best individual performance was actually the loss to Menlo, as the senior outside hitter complied a double-double with 12 digs and a career-high 25 kills. Not that the numbers meant all that much to her. But, for that matter, neither did the losing result.
OK, maybe it mattered a little bit.
“It’s definitely not the best feeling but I’m just glad I was able to play with my team,” Snigorenko said. “But we played our hearts out. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
Menlo countered with Dombkowski, who also enjoyed a career night with an eye-popping 32 kills — yes, that’s a career-high — along with 13 digs.
Menlo’s marque hitter
Dombkowski has emerged as the marque hitter for a Menlo team that lost standout junior Cleo Hardin to an injury early in the year. Dombkowski and Hardin were penciled in as the starting outside hitter rotation for a defending WBAL Foothill championship Knights team that, year in and year out, expects to content for the title.
“Obviously we miss her very much,” Dombkowski said. “But it kind of forced me to step up and kind of take over that position as well, because she’s obviously a really strong hitter. … I felt like I had some sort of spot to fill, and I was trying to make up for that. But I always like trying to bring up the other players too.”
A senior outside hitter, Dombkowski was once the kid on the Menlo roster. Promoted to the varsity team as a sophomore, she had quite a cast of her. Menlo had 10 seniors on roster in 2021 during Dombkowski’s junior year, her first full varsity season because of the COVID season of 2020.
Menlo head coach Tony Holland said Dombkowski should have been a varsity player as a freshman, but she wasn’t able to attend the team’s 2019 tryout as she was traveling abroad on a family vacation.
“We’ve joked about that ever since,” Holland said. “I tell her: ‘You probably should have been on varsity that year.’ But it’s obviously worked out since.”
It certainly worked out going into the fifth and decisive set against Mercy, as the Knights, perhaps a little battle weary, had just dropped Game 4. Holland huddled the team together to give a talk that was a bit motivational but, really, more tactical in detailing how he wanted his players to serve toward the seams.
Holland then turned the team over to Domkowski, who took care of the rah-rah element like the seasoned senior she is.
“The vibe was just: get out there and let’s end it right here,” Dombkowski said. “Let’s just put in the work, keep swinging … we’re just very united and we just want to win, and let’s just get after it.”
Crusaders rising
Mercy has really come into its own over the past two years. Last year’s finish tied for third place in the WBAL Foothill was a big deal. The team hadn’t seen any success in the WBAL’s upper division in a generation. Sure, the Crusaders won league championships in the lower Skyline Division in 2014 and ’16. But the last time they even finished above .500 in the Foothill Division was in 2010, under current Burlingame head coach Nga Tran, the last time Mercy earned a WBAL Foothill championship.
So, finishing in second place this year would be a point of pride, as it would improve on last year’s result, the program’s best standing since 2010.
“Last year our team was so amazing,” Snigorenko said. “And my goal was to bring the energy into this year, and that’s what we did, if not better. … And our goal is just to go out with a bang.”
The highlight of Mercy’s emergence is the head-to-head success against Notre Dame for the past two years, including a three-set sweep of the Tigers in the 2021 Central Coast Section Division IV playoff semifinals.
“We always take that game so seriously,” Snigorenko said. “It’s such an important game for us because they are a sister school … so we really do like to execute and play our hearts out in that game.”
Last Tuesday’s win showcased the balance of Mercy’s 5-2 offense, with setters Nicole Vo, a junior, and Clare O’Brien, a sophomore, locking in with Snigorenko and sophomore outside hitter Ava Cacao, who finished with 18 kills.
When asked for a Snigorenko highlight from the Notre Dame match, Sum said he couldn’t name just one.
“Every shot she takes, it’s always a highlight for me,” Sum said.
“The power that she’s able to generate, it just amazes me,” Sum said. “And throughout the year, she’s become just a great player and great leader.”
Snigorenko, however, did share one. But it wasn’t hers. It was the senior’s blocking complement of senior Katie Callagy and sophomore Mia Ferdinand, have been a wall at the net this season. Through last week’s two matches, Callagy totaled 10 blocks (four against Notre Dame and six against Menlo), while Ferdinand had eight (three and five). That’s an average week for the blocking tandem.
It was Callagy who ended the match against Notre Dame, as she, per Snigorenko, closed the night with a stuff block.