The Streak reaches 21

Since 1989, DN has won a title every season

Images of the season (The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson)

A streak of 21 straight league titles is an almost unheard-of accomplishment for a sports team at any level.

But that’s what the Del Norte High varsity volleyball squad did Tuesday, earning its 21st consecutive Big 5 Conference title by downing McKinleyville on the road to finish 7-1 in conference play and 16-10 overall.

If they had lost, the Warriors would have shared the title with Eureka and it would have been the first time in several years they had not won the Big 5 outright.

To put the streak in perspective, when it began in the fall of 1989 the Oakland A’s had recently won the World Series, the idea of movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger ever being governor would have elicited an odd look, and the song “Listen to Your Heart” by Roxette was No. 1 on the Billboard charts.

“It doesn’t happen very often,” senior volleyball player Kristen DeBacker said about maintaining a streak like this on any level of sports.  “It feels really great to repeat.”

DeBacker admitted she and her teammates did not want to be the team that had the streak broken.

Debbie Lorenzi has been involved with the volleyball program throughout the run.

Lorenzi became head coach in the early 1980s and was joined about 13 years in as co-coach by her husband, Pablo.

Pablo and Debbie handed the program over to former player Meagan Curtis in 2005, but were still at practices and games helping out.

They are back as co-coaches for at least this season while Curtis gives birth to her second child, which is due later this month.

“It’s a big relief now that we did it and it’s over,” Debbie Lorenzi said about winning title No. 2  in a row.

“I’m really relieved,” senior Lexie Nelson said about maintaining the winning streak. Nelson said the squad simply had “heart. We have the passion to just go out and work hard.”

The secrets to success

“Discipline, high expectations, the push for a team goal,” Pablo Lorenzi said when asked about the keys for the program doing so well for so many years. “We try to get away from individual things. It’s a team sport. We ask the girls to lay all your baggage and seeking things as an individual out the front door and to be a team.”

What happens when a player is not on the same page as the coaches and the rest of the squad?

“They get there,” Lorenzi said with a laugh.

Debbie Lorenzi said that even practices are challenging and that the coaches always expect the best from the girls.

The team does several drills with a goal for each. For example, in one drill the team must dig the ball and hit a target a certain about of times.

And, the players have to keep doing the drill until they hit the required number.

Debbie Lorenzi said this means practices can go quickly, or if the team struggles can go on for hours.

But, she said, the key point is that it prepares them for game action and makes the fundamentals, such as serving or digging the ball, almost second-nature.

“It makes them more focused,” she said, “They become more efficient come game time.”

Another reason for  the team’s success is that “we have a complete program,” Curtis said.

That includes weight training and conditioning, even during the off-season.

In the spring and summer, established players and those  interested in joining the team take part in a  weightlifting program. Summertime also brings open-gym sessions where the girls work on drills and scrimmage.

 Curtis said these sessions are a great way for the newcomers to understand “how high our expectation level is and how hard we push the girls to be better players than they think they can be.”

Warrior standouts Lexie Nelson, left and Kristen DeBacker. (The Daily Triplicate/ Bryant Anderson)

Each season presents a  different set of challenges.

The trick is to adapt and know each team is going to be different but to keep to the core fundamentals that have worked for so many years.

The coaches said this year was challenging because of the youth of the squad.

Del Norte graduated all but two starters and had only four seniors back this year.

It became more challenging in midseason when senior  Katie Rinkevicz went down with a season-ending knee injury.

“The girls had to move on and play hard and they did,”  Debbie Lorenzi said.

“We just had to step up and be leaders on the court,” junior Vanessa Alexandre said, adding  that the younger team members like herself got their experience on the court, and most importantly, believed in the system and their teammates and let the rest take care of itself.

The Warriors only Big 5 loss was at Fortuna in three games Oct. 8. It was the first time since losing to McKinleyville four years ago that Del Norte had dropped a Big 5 match.

The Fortuna defeat was an eye-opener for the squad.

At the time, Lorenzi said he felt the Warriors did not take their opponent seriously enough.

“We’re not going to walk into a gym and just win,” he said then. “We have to work. As long as we’re working hard, we’re fine.”

The Warriors didn’t lose the rest of the way in the conference.

A marked team

Debbie Lorenzi admitted that with such a young team she heard talk that some of the other Big 5 coaches thought this was the year they would take down the Warriors.

Lorenzi said each year beating Del Norte and stopping the streak is the top priority for the other Big 5 schools.

And the opposing teams seem to get better each year.

Fortuna and Eureka have started club teams and off-season conditioning programs in the hopes of catching up with the Warriors.

“They go after us every year,” Curtis said.

 Debbie Lorenzi said she was filled with excitement and emotion when the team earned the title outright Tuesday night on the road against the Panthers.

The team had dedicated its season to her dear friend, Kathleen Anderson. Anderson was the junior varsity coach for 10 years from 1982 to 1992 and was a key part in starting the Warriors on their winning path.

She died of cancer last July.

“It’s special we are able to do this for Kathleen,”  Lorenzi said. “We all knew what it meant to Kathleen each year.”

The NCS Playoffs

On Sunday, the squad will find out where and when they will play in the Northcoast Section playoffs that begin next week.

Pablo Lorenzi said he believes the Warriors have an excellent chance to host a first round home game.

While they have been beasts in the Big 5, it has been another story come playoff time.

The past two years Del Norte lost at home in the first round and the farthest they have gone in the playoffs is the third round.

Debbie Lorenzi said a key reasons for this is that almost all the girls on Bay Area squads also play for year-round club teams.

That’s not an option in remote Del Norte.

It would take a good six to seven hours just travel  to games and the cost would be too great, Lorenzi said, adding parents pay thousands of dollars to have their girls play year-round in the Bay Area.

Curtis agreed, saying in many bay area towns the programs run deep and start early, with many girls starting to play when they are 8 or 9 years old. Here, most girls don’t really start to play volleyball until middle school.

All that considered, the Warriors’ streak of 21 straight league titles “is pretty amazing,” Curtis said. “We usually shock people when they find out what we have done and we don’t even have any club teams.”

Someday, Pablo Lorenzi said, the streak will end.

If it happens despite the Warriors’ best efforts, he said,  they will have nothing to be  discouraged about.

“It’s about the game, the experiences they have and the life lessons they learn,” he said.

After all, he said, there would always be a new streak to start the following year.