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The Foothill girls volleyball team stormed into the North Coast Section semifinals with a pair of wins last week.
In the first round, the Falcons swept Berkeley 25-16, 25-18, 25-16 to advance to the quarterfinals on Nov. 4. There, Foothill faced a tough Dublin team that the Falcons had battled in close matches during the regular season.
This time, the Falcons dropped the first set but roared back to take the next three to win the match 18-25, 25-20, 25-11, 25-16.
Leading the way for the Falcons in the win over Dublin were Andreea Paduraru with 15 kills, 10 digs, nine service points and three blocks, Emily Haskell (17 digs, six kills, six service points) and Haley Roundtree with nine kills and four blocks.
The Falcons are set to take on Monte Vista in the semifinals on Wednesday evening.
Dublin — the 12th seed — had advanced to the second round by upsetting Amador Valley in five sets: 17-25, 25-21, 25-22, 16-25, 15-10.
Football
The regular season ended with a Foothill 40-13 win over Amador last Friday, but both teams advanced to the NCS playoffs and will host games in the first round.
Amador — the No. 7 seed — will open the tournament at home Friday night playing host to Deer Valley in a 7 p.m. game. If the Dons can get a win in the first round, they will go on the road to play at Freedom, the No. 2 seed.
Foothill is the No. 5 seed and will host James Logan on Saturday night at 7 p.m. If the Falcons advance, they will likely get a shot at redemption against a San Leandro team that beat Foothill in the season opener.
Foothill’s three-year starting quarterback Ben Wooldridge, who is headed to Fresno State, was injured in the first quarter of that loss to San Leandro.
Water polo
The Foothill boys lost to Acalanes 22-7 on Nov. 1 in the NCS playoffs to end their season.
Playing well for Foothill were senior Matthew Dotson, scoring five goals, with three of the assists by junior Nathan Williams, who also scored a goal. Senior Drake Southern scored the only other goal for Foothill. Harrison Carter recorded 10 saves, an assist and one steal.
The 2017 season was a success for the Falcons, making the section championships for the fourth year in a row in the strong EBAL league. The Falcons finished 6-3 in league and 14-10 overall.
On the season, scoring for Foothill was deep and well spread with Dotson (83 goals), Williams (46 goals), Southern (30 goals), junior Ryan Weiglein (24 goals), junior Dylan Weiglein (22 goals) and senior Dylan Pottgieser (19 goals).
The Foothill boys junior varsity also made excellent strides this season. The Falcons went 8-13 in the tough EBAL, but they showed signs of improvement throughout the season.
Leading the scoring for Foothill were freshman Eugene Kruger (50 goals), sophomore Sanjay Menon (27 goals) and sophomore Jesse Goodman (21 goals).
The depth of players coming up is the real improvement, with scoring and improving defense from junior Adam Locatelli, sophomore Yash Sharma, sophomore Giovanni Minnete, sophomore Ryan Xu, junior Tyler Stewart, freshman Ian Jones, sophomore Jackson Koempel, sophomore Dylan Tran, sophomore Alexander Chen, sophomore Justin Yeh, junior Navid Tehranian and freshman Carter Windom.
Although they didn’t score, big improvements were also made by freshman Hanbin Kim, freshman Cory Zhao, freshman Rohan Abraham, sophomore Shyaam Ranganathan and freshman Jaiden Devasia.
* Editor’s note: Dennis Miller is a contributing sports writer for the Pleasanton Weekly. To contact Miller or submit local high school sports scores, game highlights and photographs for his weekly Pleasanton Preps column, email him at acesmag@aol.com.