A melting pot of a men’s volleyball team coached by a woman wins in Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS — Had this happened in a major-university setting, it would be a big national story, even cinematic:

A woman coached a men’s college athletic team with players from seven different countries to an upset win in a national tournament.

That’s a lot to chew on, no? Yet, that’s just what happened Tuesday in downtown Cedar Rapids, as driver after driver motored past Alliant Energy PowerHouse, almost surely unaware the NAIA men’s volleyball national tourney was even happening there.

The 11th-seeded Warriors of Westcliff University in Irvine, Calif., lived up to their name, upsetting No. 2-seed, two-time national-champion Grand View University of Des Moines.

The match went five sets after Grand View had looked overwhelming in winning the first set, 25-11. In a tiebreaker almost worthy of Federer-Nadal or Borg-McEnroe, the Vikings staved off seven match points in the final set before Westcliff prevailed on its eighth, 21-19.

Chalk up Win No. 1 in National Tournament No. 1 for the team from Orange County, a melting pot of players from Australia, Brazil, England, Poland, Austria, Morocco, Israel, and yes, California.

Volleyball, when a beach or a keg of beer isn’t involved, is perceived as a female-dominated sport in the U.S. Hence, there are about 50 international players in this tournament.

“We need to grow the men’s side a little more,” said Westcliff Coach Alex Griffiths, one of two women’s head coaches in this tourney. She has an extensive career as a volleyball player and coach, and has helped instill confidence and skills in her guys.

Seriously, imagine the attention if a woman were guiding a men’s team in a Division I basketball tournament, or a hockey Frozen Four, or a baseball College World Series.

You’d love to have 1 percent of the movie rights for that.

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For this story, though, a team really is playing for itself. This is the side of college sports that doesn’t see the television light of day.

The Warriors’ players, coaches and staffers were spread among three different flights out of southern California Sunday because they couldn’t get everyone on the same plane.

They got to a Midwest city most Westcliff players had never heard of before they had earned their spot in this tourney. About 20 people were in the stands at 10 a.m. when the event commenced Tuesday with Westcliff-Grand View. That’s 8 a.m., Pacific time, a wee bit early for the California club.

“A little brutal, right?” Griffiths said.

The audience swelled to about 100 as players and staffers of other teams gradually filed into the arena and watched the last portion of the 2-hour, 27-minute battle, the first of four matches in the first of the tourney’s five days.

Most of those players from other teams rooted audibly for Westcliff, perhaps because the Warriors were shorter than Grand View at every position except center in a big person’s sport yet kept coming back after each of their first seven match points were thwarted by the Vikings.

“We’ve got to be scrappy,” Griffiths said. “We’ve got to be that annoying team that doesn’t let the ball hit the ground.”

This movie, er, story, started before the Warriors reassembled in Iowa. In the April 20 California Pacific Conference championship, Westcliff trailed host UC Merced two games to none and was down 13-20 in the third set.

“The announcer was telling people not to run on the floor right away after the match,” Griffiths said.

There would be no Merced postgame party. Westcliff rallied to win that set and the next two to earn their trip to Cedar Rapids.

“We don’t wake up right away,” Griffiths said, “but we get it done.”

Westcliff plays another 10 a.m. game here Wednesday, against Saint Xavier University of Chicago. Again there will be no crowd, let alone a film crew. It’s not “big-time,” so it doesn’t exist.

Uh, just don’t try telling that to the Warriors’ Ilias Lazaar or Pawel Tuz or Gabriel Pizza. And don’t tell it to their coach.

“When we play as a team,” Griffiths said, “no one can stop us regardless if we’re undersized or whatnot.”

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com