by Mark McDermott
The Northgate Broncos came into the CIF Division I Boys Volleyball Championship game on May 30 with reasonable hopes of winning the title. They had been a dominant team all season, going 37-1 and winning some of the more hallowed tourneys along the way, including the Surf City Invitational, which attracts top teams nationally and is the high-water mark of the California prep volleyball season. They were ranked fourth in the nation for good reason.
But at the very outset of the title match, Northgate came to understand they were up against an altogether different beast. In a four-point flurry that spanned less than two minutes, Mira Costa’s ascendent junior superstar Mateo Fuerbringer rose for a kill executed with such casual violence that it seemed almost dismissive — as if the Broncos were a junior varsity team and this was an exhibition game — which was then followed by a smothering block by junior Miles Crotty, a block by Fuerbringer, and finally another bloodlessly vicious kill by Fuerbringer.
People were still finding their seats at the Fresno City College gym and the Mustangs were already up 9-2. The difference between the top-ranked Mustangs and the Broncos, it turned out, was a lot more than their rankings indicated.
“You could just feel a sense of almost intimidation from Northgate,” Mira Costa head coach Greg Snyder said. “Like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a different level of volleyball that we’re seeing. We aren’t used to this.'”
The Mustangs took the first set 25-15 and never trailed in the match. They won the second set 25-17. The third set tightened to 26-24, with Northgate working its way to a brief set point, but Mira Costa closed it out, swept the Bay Area program 3-0, and claimed its second consecutive CIF Division 1 state championship — and, almost certainly, its second consecutive national title. Mira Costa has been ranked first in the country in both the MaxPreps and AVCA polls throughout the entire playoff run.
Fuerbringer led the Mustangs with 26 kills on a .444 hitting percentage, adding three blocks, seven digs, and two aces. Setter Jake Newman had 40 assists and eight digs. Justin Warner and Dane Del Riego had nine and eight digs, respectively. As a team, Mira Costa hit .345 with 41 kills, 11 blocks, three aces, and 47 digs.
For a program that has been elite for decades, the achievement is a first. Mike Cook coached at Mira Costa for 29 years and won eight CIF titles. The school’s volleyball history includes Olympic gold medalists and national players of the year. None of those teams ever won back-to-back section, regional, state, and national championships.
“It’s a big moment in the history of Mira Costa volleyball,” Snyder said.
It is also a wildly unlikely moment. While Mira Costa boys volleyball teams are rarely if ever underdogs, at the outset of this season nobody saw this coming. Last year’s team sent six players on to Division I college volleyball programs, including USC-bound setter Andrew Chapin, who had quarterbacked the previous championship squad, and Cooper Keane, the top-ranked outside hitter in the country. The 2025-26 Mustangs were not the favorites to repeat. They were not even, by Snyder’s honest read, necessarily the team with the most gifted players.
“I really thought that any of the top five teams had a legitimate shot of winning it,” Snyder said. “It seemed like we earned the spot of being the best team, as opposed to the most talented team.”
The answer to the question of how a team replaces six legendary players turned out to be twofold: grit, and Fuerbringer. The UCLA commit, who played as a freshman and sophomore alongside a roster too deep to give him prime sets, this season became the offense, and his numbers exploded.
“He’s just a human cheat code,” Snyder said. “There are no answers for him. No matter how you game plan for him, he’s still going to be successful and make winning plays and carry a team.”
Senior middle blocker Wyatt Davis, who has played alongside Fuerbringer for three seasons, watched the jump happen in real time.
“He’s probably had one of the biggest jumps ever in a hitting percentage,” Davis said. “He went from like .250 to .450 on the year, and he basically just proved that he’s the best player in the country by far.”
But this team also had something else.
“We weren’t as talented as last year’s team,” Snyder said, “but we worked harder than I think I’ve seen a team at Costa work since I’ve been here.”
The hardest lesson of the season came early. In a midseason match against Redondo Union, the Mustangs played, by Snyder’s description, “bad” — unfocused and disconnected — and lost in five sets. The coaches had warned them Redondo was a good team. The players, after several straight victories over their crosstown rival, hadn’t quite believed it.
“That was a little slap in the face,” Snyder said. “Ever since that match, they took just about every opponent seriously. And you saw a different type of volleyball.”
The Mustangs would beat Redondo when they met again, sweep Loyola 3-0 in the CIF Southern Section Division 1 final at Cerritos College, and reach the state final having dropped only two sets in their entire playoff run. They were one of eight teams in last year’s inaugural Division 1 state final field — and the only one of those eight to make it back this year.
The state final against Northgate was, in some sense, an extension of the season’s argument. The Broncos had arrived in Fresno having dispatched Archbishop Mitty in the state semifinals — the same Mitty team Mira Costa had swept for the state title a year ago. Snyder said the Mustangs played their best defensive volleyball of the year against them, which he treats as the inverse of the program’s reputation.
“This is one of the best defensive teams that Costa has had,” he said. “I don’t think Costa has really been known for our defense. We’re known for our skill. So the fact that we are a very good defensive team makes me happy. It makes me realize that Costa is very capable of working hard and outworking teams, and we’ve been proving that all season.”
It was also a night, Snyder said, where Northgate was learning something the Mustangs already knew — that the road through the CIF Southern Section is its own kind of preparation.
“They were good, but I think they were just not accustomed to playing against teams that know how to fight and grind as hard as we do,” he said. “We’ve been through the gauntlet already.”
The third set, the only stretch of the match where Northgate threatened to push the result into a fourth set, was where the Mustangs’ depth and composure showed up most. Mira Costa was without senior Colby Graham — who had a prom conflict and chose to attend the dance instead of the state championship — and still found the path to closing out the sweep, with Teddy Mandelbaum stepping into the rotation and finishing with nine kills. After Northgate worked its way to a set point in the third, the Mustangs answered.
“We knew that we could come back from that,” senior Miles Crotty said in a postgame interview with AthleticLIVE. “We’ve done it a million times. We just need to go out there and finish what we started.”
The bench-to-starters culture, Snyder said, is one of the season’s truest measures.
“No matter who we put in, everyone seems to be contributing and listening and making a positive impact on the match,” Snyder said. “It’s not like we’re taking a step backwards. We don’t need to hide anybody. Everyone’s capable of contributing in a positive way. And it doesn’t necessarily mean just the guys on the court. Even the last guy on the bench is pushing the guys that are making an impact on the court in practice. So everyone from one through 18 added to the success of the season.”
For Davis, who played a complementary role on last year’s championship squad before becoming this year’s defensive anchor and UC Santa Barbara commit, the season was the culmination of years of work.
“I moved to Costa for volleyball, and having the opportunity in front of me, it means a lot,” Davis said. “I worked really hard to get there, and with such a great team that we have, anything short of winning would be a disappointment. So I just got to make sure that didn’t happen, and we put it together and we won.”
What changed for Davis this year was the nature of the role, not the level of effort.
“Last year I learned a lot. I played with some really great players like Chapin, Grayson, Cooper, Thatcher, so they made me better every single day at practice,” Davis said. “Last year my job was kind of just to sit back, get some blocks, and just be like a great team player. But this year I obviously had to step up a lot more on the offensive end and defensive end, and just kind of lead the team. That’s what I did this season.”
Davis credits the other seniors with rising to fill the specific shoes left vacant by last year’s graduates — Colby Graham absorbing the work of 6-foot-11 outside hitter Grayson Bradford, Enzo Barker taking on the load left by Thatcher Fahlbusch and Cooper Keane, and Jake Newman stepping into the setter role Chapin had run for three years.
“They obviously had a high expectation, and they performed way out of expectations,” Davis said. “They balled out in every game, and we couldn’t have won without them.”
Senior libero Dane Del Riego, who had eight digs in the championship match and 15 in the regional final, was also named recipient of the CIF Pursuing Victory With Honor Award, a statewide recognition for athletes who exemplify sportsmanship and character.
Snyder said that while every member of the squad played a role in the title, the seniors set the tone.Â
“From Wyatt Davis, who’s a starter going to UC Santa Barbara, to Dylan Feakins, who is not really going on to play volleyball [at college] — every single one of them adds an important piece of the puzzle for this year’s team. The fact that all the seniors contributed and made this a common goal, and accomplished it, and did it the right way — that, to me, is what stood out, and what separated this team from our competition.”
Mira Costa now faces the kind of question even great programs rarely get to ask. Fuerbringer returns next season as a senior. So does a core of underclassmen who have now played in two state finals. Other programs in the chase are losing more than the Mustangs are. Snyder, when asked about the prospect of a third straight title run, allowed himself the smallest measure of confidence.
“We should be in a good position to have another successful run,” he said. “I’m sure there’s still going to be some teams that are going to challenge for that spot. But I like what we’re going to be next year, too.”
What Fuerbringer might still add to the equation, Snyder said, is itself an open question.
“He always finds a way to get better,” Snyder said. “I’m really curious to see how he improves this off-season, and what he comes back with in his tool bag next year. Because I thought it was full, and he still adds to it.” ER
