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Boys’ Volleyball: Conti leads CdM into semifinals

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Steve Conti has been coaching high school volleyball for more than half his life.

Conti turned 49 last month, and how did he spend his birthday? He rode with his Corona del Mar boys’ team to Los Angeles Loyola to coach. At the end of the night, Conti said he didn’t get the gift he wanted, CdM lost for the second time in five days to Loyola.

There is still time for the Sea Kings to get their coach something special in the form of a win against Loyola.

Conti leads CdM back to Loyola for the semifinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs on Wednesday at 7 p.m. The No. 2-seeded Cubs (29-1) again stand in the way of No. 3 CdM (27-6) reaching the section finale.

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The programs met in the semifinals last year at Loyola, the home team rallied to win the five-set match and advanced to the finals for the fifth time in six years. The stretch is an impressive one and Conti experienced a similar ride early in his career with the Sea Kings.

Conti began coaching at CdM in 1996, and a year later, he guided the program to the section finals. The trip to the finals marked the first of five straight for Conti, who won twice.

Winning the first title meant a lot to Conti for many reasons. Before then, the big match was the one Conti and his teams fell short in as a player and as a coach.

As a player at Estancia, his teams lost in the CIF Southern Section Division 4-A finals in 1983 and ’84. Then he went on to play at Golden West College and his teams dropped the state championship in 1985 and ’86.

A couple of years later, Conti’s coaching debut came with the girls at The Bishop’s School in La Jolla. Twice his teams lost the CIF San Diego Section championship.

Conti moved back to Orange County, and in the early 1990s, he began to coach the girls and boys at Foothill for two years. When a teaching job on campus fell through, he left for an opportunity to coach at CdM.

The year without Conti Foothill won the CIF Southern Section Division II crown in 1996. Days before the final against Calvary Chapel, Conti’s former players invited him to attend the match.

“To watch them win was a weird emotion,” said Conti, adding that he was thrilled for the players, but he wanted to be a part of the program’s historic run. “I asked myself, ‘Did I miss an opportunity here?’ I used to think, ‘Am I ever going to get to the championship match again, and what would it be like to win it?’”

Conti said he has no regrets. It all worked out for Conti, who in his 20th year with the Sea Kings is looking to lead them to their 11th section finals appearance.

Conti has won five section crowns with the boys, and if you include the one he claimed with the girls in 1997, he has six section titles overall. Conti, who has a record of 440-125 with the boys, has won the CIF Southern California Regional Division II championship twice and a national championship once.

But Conti’s biggest win came off the court. The top prize to Conti is meeting his wife, Kerrie, at the end of his first year teaching at Ensign Intermediate School. The two have been together ever since, and they have raised two children, Braden, 13, and Alexa, 12, in Costa Mesa.

Starting a family was the reason why Conti said he stepped down as the CdM girls’ coach in 2001. In four years, his teams won a section title and reached the semifinals three times.

During this time of the season, Conti’s family is usually there whenever dad’s team is competing in the postseason. Braden has been spending a lot of time with his father, whether it’s surfing together, or Conti coaching his son on his Balboa Bay Volleyball Club team.

One of Braden’s teammates is Jaden, the son of Dan Glenn, the girls’ volleyball coach at Newport Harbor. For years, the legendary coaches coached against each other in the annual Battle of the Bay rivalry, until Glenn stepped down as the boys’ coach before the 2012 season.

Glenn spent a quarter of a century in charge of Newport Harbor’s boys, and when Conti hits his 25th year with the Sea Kings, he said he too might call it quits as a head coach. He said he might become an assistant, in the same way Glenn has with the boys at Newport Harbor.

There are a handful of years left before Conti reaches his 25th season at CdM. At this age, he said he’s still having fun coaching.

The staff Conti has assembled is one of the best in Southern California. There’s Sam Stafford, a former setter of Conti’s who won section titles in 2005 and ‘07, Steve Astor, one of the up-and-coming young coaches in the sport, and Josh Ko, a former coach at Foothill.

The CdM roster is loaded with USC-bound outside hitter Ryan Moss, UC Santa Barbara-bound opposite Kevin Fults, Pepperdine-bound middle blocker Augie Miller and junior setter Matt Ctvrtlik. They all appreciate what Conti has done with the CdM program.

All Conti asks of them is to give it their all and appreciate these precious moments. He knows the Sea Kings are in for a battle at Loyola, which has beaten CdM three consecutive times. Loyola is one of the few places Conti has never won during his 25 years coaching boys.

“If we come out and win,” said Conti, who leads CdM into Loyola for the sixth time, “no one is going to remember the previous matches we lost to them.”

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