Wednesday, May 12, 2004 | 9:34 a.m.
Kevin Sagers is the only current Centennial player who saw significant action during last year's undefeated state championship run. In Tuesday's Sunset Region boys' volleyball quarterfinals, it showed.
Sagers recorded 13 kills and bailed out his team in a pair of tight situations to push the Bulldogs past Durango, 22-25, 25-21, 25-18, 23-25, 15-12, at Coronado High School.
The victory sets up a Thursday semifinal matchup between defending champion Centennial (NW-2) and this year's prohibitive favorite, Sierra Vista (SW-1). The Lions eliminated Mojave (NW-4) with little trouble, 25-11, 25-13, 25-11.
Centennial, though, needed quite a bit more effort in this rematch of last year's 4A state title game. Sagers recorded five kills in the fifth game, including consecutive smashes from the outside that gave the Bulldogs a 10-7 lead that they protected.
That was not Sagers' only feat, though. Having lost the first game, Centennial found itself down, 21-20, in the second game. Sagers again came to the rescue, recording three kills and a roof block to get his team back into the match.
"He's definitely our go-to man," Centennial coach Roger Brown said. "We have to go to Kevin. He's the one who carries us through."
Sagers had help from Chase McCormick, who tied for the team lead with 13 kills. Spencer Demille tallied 39 assists for the Bulldogs. Brown admired his team's ability to win without playing its best game.
"When you get this far, it's survive -- survive and advance," Brown said. "These guys showed a lot of tenacity tonight."
Brown, who replaced Dave Fish as coach, said his team needed time to work in a number of new players and is now playing better ball.
"We were so up-and-down looking for the right chemistry early in the season," Brown said. "We didn't know who we were going to have because nobody had experience. I think we found our chemistry late in the second half of the regular season."
Durango scratched and clawed throughout, but was eventually undone by its unforced errors. The Blazers took a number of lift and double hit calls, and committed 15 service errors.
"It was the team that was going to make less unforced errors," Durango coach Scott Zeidler said. "We made our share of them."
Miles Peshlakai led the Blazers with 16 kills. Matt Marshall totaled 12 kills and Darryl Kelley added 11 kills for Durango, while Robert Poort gave out 39 assists.
Thursday's other Sunset semifinal will feature Cimarron-Memorial and Bonanza. The Spartans (NW-1) easily dispatched Clark (SW-4), 25-14, 25-20, 25-17. The Bengals (SW-2) dropped a game to Palo Verde (NW-3), but prevailed, 24-26, 25-13, 25-12, 25-17.
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