Telepeer

Bolsa Grande boys volleyball overcomes shaky start as No. 1 seed in playoffs

April 29, 2026

GARDEN GROVE — The Bolsa Grande boys volleyball team earned the No. 1 seed in Division 4 of the CIF Southern Section playoffs, and with it came high expectations that seemed to be weighing on the team during the opening set of its first-round match against Quartz Hill on Tuesday night at Bolsa Grande High.

After a shaky start, the Matadors rebounded and won the match in four sets, 22-25, 25-16, 25-15, 25-23, to advance to the second round.

Bolsa Grande (20-2) will host Village Christian in the second round.

Matadors coach Brad Hemmerling was relieved to come away with a victory against the Royals, a CIF-SS finalist last season.

“We did not have our best stuff tonight.” Hemmerling said. “We rely on our passing and serving and out of the gate it just wasn’t good. A lot of missed serves, a lot of hitting errors as well, so not our best volleyball. But a win is a win. We’ll take it and it’s only going to get harder from here.”

The Matadors regrouped in the second set and tied the match 1-1.

“We haven’t had these kind of expectations in this program in a long time.” Hemmerling said. “Coming in as a 1-seed, you know, Division 4, this is big time for us. And I think the boys kind of felt that coming out, but we settled in a little bit.”

The Bolsa Grande attack was led by Kevin Tran, who finished with a match-high 18 kills, and Matthew Van, who added 11 kills.

“He had a lot of confidence hitting it high and deep and just off the hands and, you know, cutting it back to area one, a lot of finesse too,” Hemmerling said of Tran. “So he was just super good and we found the hot hand and we got it to him.”

Van suffered an injury to his right hand in the third set but returned for the final set.

“Without him, it changes some things, but I think you saw in that set that he went down, my guys started to play better,” Hemmerling said. “They all stepped up and it was actually pretty cool to see because they kind of raised a level. They knew they had to step up and get some stuff done without Matthew out there.”

The Matadors received contributions from Kyle Le (nine kills), Dylan Nguyen (eight kills) and Michael Ngo, who dished out 44 assists and had five blocks.

When Van made his way back on the court in the fourth set, he relied on adrenaline to close things out.

“Just coming into that fourth set, it was tight, but I just knew how to push through,” Van said of his injury.

Tran collected the match-point kill.

“I think seeing Matthew’s injury really sparked the fire in me to help me finish that set and win it for the team.” Tran said.

Orange County Register

News Details

Bolsa Grande boys volleyball overcomes shaky start as No. 1 seed in playoffs

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

News

CONTACT INFO

QUICK LINKS

SERVICES

CURRENT NEWS