Campolindo d. Cathedral Catholic-San Diego 27-25, 25-23, 21-25, 18-25 and 15-10.

The Star:  Campo's Mary Vaccaro claimed the Most Valuable Player of the finals, despite playing through a hip injury, which forced her to miss time in the third and fourth sets. Vaccaro's intensity fueled the Campo fire while her unbelievable all-around skill and athleticism powered them to victory. She packed the box score with 20 kills, 17 digs, two aces and a block.

The Turning Point: The Cougars captured the momentum in the fifth and deciding game with score locked at three-all. Campo's Sophie Smith lifted the Cougar's with two spectacular digs against Cathedral Catholic's all-tournament performer Taylor Milton giving them a 4-3 lead that they would not relinquish.

The Quote: "Northern California teams have not had much success, of late, in the state tournament and they always say following the match, 'It was an honor to just be in the state championship game.' I told my girls, when you go to state, you go to win. To say it is an honor, is something losers say." – Campolindo coach Scott Bishop.

The Bottom Line: Even though Cathedral Catholic was more familiar with playing on the state championship stage, as it was competing in its third-consecutive state title match, Campolindo was the more mentally focused and prepared team. The Cougars played with amazing fire and combined that with razor sharp execution to push them past the uber-talented Dons.

Records:  Campolindo 33-4, Cathedral Catholic 31-9.

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A sense of panic came over the Campolindo High  bench and faithful, as it watched its renegade leader, Mary Vaccaro, limp back through the tunnel to the locker room in the third game of the Divison III state championship.

"Mary sets the emotional tone and when she got hurt everyone kept asking, 'Where is Mary?' and 'who is subbing for Mary?'," Campo coach Scott Bishop said. "My trainer tried everything short of stabbing her with an epinephrine needle."

Mary's absence with a hip injury seemed certain to doom the Cougars against the defending state champion Dons, Saturday afternoon at San Jose State University.

When Vaccaro limped back onto the court in the fifth game after only playing brief stretches in third- and fourth-game losses, it brought a raucous ovation from the crowd.

"Before the fifth game, my assistant coach, and my team captains (Abbie Noland and Kim Condie) all ran up to me and said 'Mary has to be in for game five'," Bishop said.

In the fifth and deciding game with Vaccaro on the court and several fantastic digging efforts from libero Sophie Smith, the Cougars regained their edge from victories in game one and two, to down the Dons 15-10 and claim the state championship.

 "The fifth game was all our adrenaline, our excitement, and the crowd," said Campo's Abbie Noland, who recorded a team-leading four kills in the fifth set. "We lost the third game, and that was the first game we lost (in the CIF tournament) and that shocked us."

"We could not recover in the fourth game. But in the fifth game we realized this is state and we can beat this team. We got off to a good start and once we do that we cannot be stopped."

The Cougars spent the week leading up to the championship game studying film of the Dons and devising plans to work around their huge frontline and defend Cathedral's heavy hitters, Taylor Milton, Morgan Cormier and Lindsay Elgin.

"(Cathedral Catholic) was by far the biggest team we have played against all year," pointed out Bishop.

"They also had a really good lefty (Milton) which we had not faced before," added Kim Condie. "She could hit in multiple places but we had watched her on film and knew what to expect and were able to figure it out."

According to Vaccaro, the Cougars moved their defense as a single unit to limit the effectiveness of Milton's vicious strikes. The Dons senior captain recorded a game-high 29 kills but was held by a scrappy Cougar defense to 29 percent kill-accuracy.

"In the second and third game we were still trying to figure out what we needed to do to slow them down," Cathedral Catholic coach Kelly Drobeck said. "We got better as the match went on, but the fifth game is anyone's game. We got down at 9-8 and simply could not sideout soon enough."

While Campo executed its plans to perfection with a total team effort on offense and defense, the Dons, who admitted to not scouting the Cougars, played an error-ridden game with several net touching violations and double-taps.

"Campo ran a very fast set to the outside, which was effective against our defense. We had trouble closing the blocks," Drobeck said. "They passed really well and made very few errors. That is a good combination for winning a match. We made a lot of errors in this match."

During the contest, Cathedral Catholic ran most of its offensive sets through Milton who attempted 68 kills while their other captain Cormier (14 kills) only had 31 attempts (second most on the team). The Cougars were the exact opposite, with setter Sophie Seibert sharing the ball evenly based on openings in the oppositon's defense.

Seibert dished-out 49-assists and led an offensive attack that was balanced and unpredictable. Noland (15 kills and twelve digs) and Anisa Smith (ten kills and a block) were both named to the All-Tournament team.

Smith played an efficient game, converting on a team-high 43 percent of her kill attempts. She teamed-up with the likes of Chandler Moore and Annie Shurtz to solidify the Cougars' frontline. Shurtz and Moore both combined for 14 kills and three blocks.

Moore's emphatic rejection of Milton to give Campo an 8-5 fifth-set advantage brought about her most demonstrative celebration of the season, where she dropped to her knees while pounding the floor. The key score also led to an eruption of cheers and another standing ovation from the Campolindo section.

"This was a great example of our season as a whole, when Mary went down after game two, her teammates stepped up and continued to make plays," Bishop said. "So many teams have great players but not all teams have great teams to build around those great players."

It is a popular cliché in many major sports that championships are won with defense and no team follows this ethos better than Cougars. The team combined for 66 digs and had solid contributions across-the-board with Sophie Smith leading the way collecting 18, and Vaccaro, diving, with utter abandon for health, numerous times, to record 17.

"When Mary dives, she goes parallel to the floor, five-feet in the air, then slams into the ground," said Bishop of his team's digging. "Sophie came up with two amazing digs that are emblazed on my brain... against Taylor and we won both points (in the fifth set)."

The Cougars claimed their second state championship after winning in 2006 and have cemented themselves as a Northern California powerhouse.

After an amazing NorCal tournment run where they refused to drop even a single set, the Cougars will most likely go down as the best Campolindo volleyball ever and they now have the state championship hardware to prove it.

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