Foothill's volleyball season did not end with Saturday's section final. The Falcons lost the North Coast Section Division 1 title match to Carondelet, then learned Sunday that they will open the CIF state playoffs as the No. 2 seed in the Northern California Division II bracket.
Foothill (28-10) hosts No. 15 Milpitas at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the first round, according to the school's athletics page. As it did throughout the section tournament, Foothill will play its home match at Amador Valley High School.
A title match that turned after one set
Foothill entered the NCS bracket as the top seed and reached Saturday's final at Amador Valley with an eight-match winning streak, according to MaxPreps. The Falcons took the first set from third-seeded Carondelet 25-21, then dropped the next three 25-16, 25-17 and 25-23, the school's results page shows.
The loss reversed the result of the two teams' previous meeting. On Oct. 22, Foothill beat Carondelet in five sets to win the East Bay Athletic League tournament, taking the last two sets 25-17 and 15-6 after trailing two sets to one. Foothill went 13-1 in league play.
The state brackets released Sunday sent the two teams in different directions. Carondelet, the section champion, is seeded No. 12 in the NorCal Division I bracket and travels to No. 5 Clovis West. Foothill was placed one division lower, in Division II, according to the MaxPreps brackets.
Milpitas arrives off its own five-set final
Milpitas (24-9) also lost a section final Saturday. Homestead beat the Trojans 3-2 in the Central Coast Section Division 1 championship, a result that ended a five-match Milpitas winning streak, MaxPreps reported. Milpitas finished fourth in its league at 6-6.
Eight of Milpitas' matches this season went five sets, and the Trojans won four of them, including a 3-2 win on Oct. 7 over Los Gatos, a Division I state qualifier this year. Two of the five-set losses came against Homestead.
What the bracket holds
A win Tuesday would send Foothill into a quarterfinal on Thursday, Nov. 12, against the winner of No. 7 Rio Americano and No. 10 Menlo School. The semifinals are Nov. 14 and the NorCal regional final is Nov. 17. The Division II state final is scheduled for 4 p.m. Nov. 21 at Santiago Canyon College in Orange.
Foothill has already played several teams in the field. The Falcons beat fourth-seeded Las Lomas 3-1 in last Wednesday's NCS semifinal and swept No. 11 Archbishop Riordan 2-0 at the Stockton Varsity Classic on Oct. 10. No. 14 Homestead, Milpitas' opponent on Saturday, opens at No. 3 Del Oro in Foothill's half of the bracket.
