|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The Amador Valley varsity girls’ volleyball team started the season off strong, advancing to the finals of the powerhouse loaded East County Tournament in Antioch.
The Dons turned in a perfect pool round, beating Foothill-Palo Cedro 25-15, 25-12, and then took down Redwood 25-20, 25-10.
That put the Dons into the Championship Bracket where they beat Monte Vista 25-17, 25-20 to advance to the semifinals.
There, Amador faced crosstown rival Foothill, winning 31-29, 25-18 to advance to the championship where they met Redwood for the second time. This time the Dons came out on the short end, falling 26-24, 25-14.
For the Foothill girls in the same East County Tournament, the Falcons rolled through pool play and their first playoff game before dropping the tough one to Amador in the semifinals.
Foothill beat Pittsburg 25-15, 25-17 to open play, then came back to beat Monte Vista 25-11, 25-17 in the next match to send the Falcons to the playoffs.
In the first elimination game, Foothill beat American 25-12, 25-15 to advance to the semifinals. There they lost in two sets to the Dons.
Highlights throughout the tournament came from Katie Salonga (86 assists, 21 digs), Paige Bennett (40 kills, 20 digs), Kaycie Burdick (37 kills, 19 digs) and Maddy Snodgress (13 kills, 4 blocks).
Amador girls’ water polo
The Dons got in a pair of non-league games last week, beating Heritage 6-5, and losing 14-5 to Palo Alto.
In the win over Heritage, Susan Swyers had three goals, with Olivia Vollgraf, Maya Amiel and Zahra Alami with one each.
In the loss to Palo Alto, Swyers had three more, with Alami and Kate Hopkins getting one each.
Amador centennial celebration
The 100th anniversary of Amador Valley High School is rapidly approaching, with the events taking place Sept. 14-16.
My family moved into town in 1967, and being a 1979 graduate of Amador, it has given me a rich history of Amador Valley athletics.
I have been blessed to see some legendary athletes come through, watching some as I was growing up, then going to battle with many when I was a student, and finally being able to cover and write about some of these great student athletes.
Over the next few weeks leading into the celebration, I will be blasting out the names of these athletes, some with a quick description of the athlete.
Since I am not working with the centennial committee, I will be putting my own list together that could also help the Amador Hall of Fame committee when their selections come around each year.
Then again, it might not help!
I will break it into three segments over the next month, with the final list coming out on Sept. 15, the Friday of celebration weekend.
The first segment will be next week and will start with athletes I watched growing up. Growing up in Pleasanton, we were regulars at Amador sporting events, following our favorite Dons. This will appear next Friday (Sept. 1).
Week two that will come out on Sept. 8 will be about the athletes of my time at Amador. There were plenty of great athletes, some that reached the pinnacle of their sport of choice.
Finally, on Sept. 15, it will be all about the athletes I had the joy of covering in my career as a sportswriter. It’s been a fun week just thinking about some of the tremendous Amador athletes that have worn purple and gold over the years.
It’s going to be a fun three weeks — and if you think there are some athletes I need to consider, please send an email to me!
Editor’s note: Dennis Miller is a contributing sports writer for the Pleasanton Weekly. To contact him about his Pleasanton Preps column, email acesmag@aol.com.
