OCEANSIDE — When Rock Academy faced Hilltop in an early-season girls volleyball tournament, it got destroyed. Things got so bad that the Warriors notched only four kills in two sets and lost the second set, 25-3.

Apparently, you learn more from your losses than your wins.

Rock Academy ran its winning streak to 17 straight matches with Thursday’s 25-16, 15-25, 25-16, 25-27, 15-4 win over The Monarch School in the Division 5-AA championship match. It was the most important win of them all, as it resulted in the first CIF San Diego Section championship in program history.

The Warriors (23-1) lost in last year’s championship match to Calipatria in four sets, so redemption was clearly a motivator.

Junior outside hitter Alexa Baird led the way for Rock Academy with 15 kills and three aces.

For the Royals, who came in on a 12-match winning streak, simply getting here was a victory. This was the furthest trip for the school that features students who are either currently or recently unhoused.

The Royals (18-7) were led by senior outside hitter Chantal Bocanegra, who notched nine kills with four aces and two blocks.

Royals junior outside hitter Daphne Allen put away three straight balls in the middle to tie set one at 13 before Rock Academy’s offense caught fire. Baird had three kills near the end of the set.

The Royals appeared to be ending the night early in the second set as the Warriors went up 4-0 on two Martha Mulumbilwa kills and two Aliya Landes aces. That’s when Jennifer Bocanegra took over.

She had a kill in serve receive to get the Royals on the board then dialed up three straight aces.

She combined with Allen on a stuff block for an 11-7 lead. Allen had two late kills then Bocanegra crushed a ball on the outside after a long rally for a 23-15 lead in a set they’d take 25-15.

The third set was mostly back and forth .The Royals went up 8-6 before the Warriors offense got stronger. Mulumbilwa got a stuff block for a 10-8 lead. Parker Duhs notched a pair of aces after a timeout.

Before the Royals could call another timeout, the deficit was 19-12. Mulumbilwa ended set three with a huge kill on the outside in serve receive.

Not surprisingly, set four was neck and neck. Allen had three early kills, but the well-rounded Warriors attack kept it close. And then the Royals refused to let balls drop on their side, raising their defensive effort to a championship level. An 18-11 lead turned in a nail-biting 27-25 win to send it to a fifth set.

Riki Salas Smith served an ace for the Royals to start set five. The early part of the set was like two boxers in the 12th round exchanging swings (and sometimes errors). It was 3-3 before Rock Academy went on a run for the ages, closing it out with a 15-4 win.

The Navy has relieved the commanding officer of a San Diego-based school for its information warfare sailors, a statement announced Thursday.

Cmdr. Cayanne McFarlane was relieved as commander of Naval Information Warfare Training Group San Diego by Capt. Meredith Schley, the commodore of the Naval Information Warfare Training Group.

According to its website, the schoolhouse’s mission “is to train, support and deploy naval forces to execute the Information Warfare (IW) mission in support of naval operations.”

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McFarlane’s relief, which was officially over a “loss of confidence in her ability to command,” marks at least the 12th firing of a commanding officer this year for the Navy.

Loss of confidence is a boilerplate reason provided by the Navy, and other military services, that can encompass anything from consistent poor performance by a command on key evaluations to personal actions like drunken driving.

A military official told Military.com that McFarlane was relieved over a matter of personal conduct that did not involve allegations that would have affected another sailor.

Navy officials have previously said the sea service relieved 15 commanding officers in 2023. There are currently around 1,600 commanding officers in the active-duty Navy across all communities.

According to her Navy biography, McFarlane is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy who was commissioned as a cryptologic warfare officer in 2006.

Records provided by the Navy to Military.com show that she earned both Surface Warfare Officer and Information Dominance Warfare Officer certifications.

She began her career at the Navy Information Operations Command in Texas in 2006 before serving aboard the destroyer USS Farragut as the ship’s information warfare officer and electronic warfare officer.

She eventually moved to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, where she worked in the Joint Information Operations Center and later as an aide-de-camp to the deputy commander.

McFarlane assumed command of the San Diego schoolhouse in April 2023.

Her decorations include the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, two awards of the Meritorious Service Medal, a Joint Service Commendation Medal, and two awards of the Joint Service Achievement Medal, among other service and unit awards, records show.

According to the Navy’s statement, McFarlane has been temporarily reassigned to Naval Information Forces, while Cmdr. Dominic DiMaggio, the executive officer of the Fleet Weather Center in San Diego, has been temporarily assigned as the school’s commanding officer until a permanent replacement is designated.

Commander of Navy Leadership and Ethics Center Fired over Personal Conduct

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New car sales in San Diego — as well as California — are stuck in neutral this year, as high sticker prices and burdensome financing costs keep a sizable number of potential customers away.

Registrations in the state for new vehicles through the first nine months of 2024 were down 1.7% compared to the first three quarters of last year, according to data from the California New Car Dealers Association, while national sales figures were up 2.7%.

San Diego County figures were slightly better than statewide numbers, but only slightly — down 0.7% through the first three quarters.

“Looking at our economist’s analysis of a market, it feels like we’ve reached a new sales plateau,” said Brian Maas, president of the car dealers association.

According to Edmunds.com, the average price of a new vehicle in the U.S. as of September climbed to $47,431 and the average price of an all-electric vehicle came to $59,723. Even used cars are not very cheap, with the Edmunds average coming to $27,422.

“You literally cannot buy any vehicle today for the same price that you bought it five or six years ago,” said Ivan Drury, senior manager of auto insights at Edmunds. “And financing is a huge problem now.”

While the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates in September as inflation has cooled, Edmunds data show that as of last month, the average interest rate to finance a new car in the U.S. came to 7.3% and the average monthly payment was $742.

“It’s like consumers are getting hit left and right,” Drury said. According to Edmunds’ analysis, in the third quarter of this year, the average vehicle in the U.S. is on the lot 57 days before it gets purchased, compared to 37 days during the same time last year.

The California New Car Dealers Association anticipates the number of registrations in 2024 will come to about 1.75 million, which is slightly lower than the 1.77 million recorded last year. That’s a far cry from state sales figures that hovered around 2 million registrations per year prior to the pandemic.

The industry hopes that pent-up demand will eventually entice consumers back into a buying mode, especially if interest rates continue to decline.

The third quarter numbers reflected mixed messages for California’s hoped-for transition from gasoline-powered cars and trucks to electric vehicles.

On the positive side, all-electric battery and plug-in hybrid vehicles combined to make up 25.6 percent of the market in new vehicle sales and leases through the first nine months of this year — by far the highest numbers for any state.

But the rate of adoption of battery-electric vehicles, or EVs, has increased just seven-tenths of a percentage point through the third quarter of this year compared to 2023 and the market share of plug-in hybrids was flat — 3.4 percent in 2023 and 3.4 percent through Q3.

Four years ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order mandating the elimination of sales of all new gasoline-powered passenger vehicles in California by 2035. And in fewer than two years, the first of a series of state-imposed targets will start rolling out.

Under standards passed by the Air Resources Board, at least 35 percent of model year 2026 passenger cars and trucks sold in the state must be electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The numbers ramp up each year, going to 68% in 2030 and 100% by 2035.

“As the mandates kick in, are there going to be enough customers to support the requirements that the mandate requires?” Maas said. “Sales continue to go up, but they’re not going up by leaps and bounds.”

Under definitions set by state policymakers, battery-electric, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles qualify toward meeting California’s zero-emission target.

Hybrid vehicles that do not have plug-ins have been posting robust sales figures — not only in the Golden State but across the country — but they do not count under the state’s mandate because they use gasoline.

The third-quarter numbers showed the top-selling car across the state is still the all-electric Tesla Model Y. It racked up more than twice the number of registrations than California’s No. 2-selling car, the Toyota RAV4. The Tesla Model 3 finished sixth.

But statewide registrations for all Tesla models are down 12.6% compared to last year.

Analysts have offered a number of possible reasons why — including the potential sales effect of Tesla founder Elon Musk weighing in political issues after buying X (formerly Twitter) and actively campaigning for Donald Trump for president.

But Drury thinks a primary reason is simply because the number of EVs available is expanding, as other carmakers roll out their own models.

“There’s more competition,” he said. “The Model Y is kind of like the default purchase versus the Model 3 when you’re looking at the Tesla lineup, so it’s kind of a cannibalization of sales there.”

Behind the Model Y and Model 3, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 was No. 3 among top-selling zero-emissions vehicles in California through the third quarter with 11,711 registrations. The Ford Mustang Mach-E finished fourth, with 8,013.

Top-selling models in California

(for 2024, through September)

1. Tesla Model Y     105,693
2. Toyota RAV4        49,810
3. Honda Civic          40,741
4. Toyota Camry       40,025
5. Honda CR-V          37,759
6. Tesla Model 3        37,219
7. Toyota Corolla       29,341
8. Chevy Silverado    28,029
9. Ford F-Series         26,753
10. Honda Accord        25,240

Sources: California New Car Dealers Association and Experian Automotive