Harbor High’s boys volleyball team created a listed of goals at the outset of the season and accomplished all of them.

That helped take off some of the sting from its season-ending loss in the first round of the CIF Division II NorCal Regional playoffs.

The No. 6 seed Pirates, learned Monday that they’d be without junior twin middles Luke and Jake Wolfenden, and suffered a 25-20, 25-18, 25-19 loss to No. 3 Del Oro in Loomis on Tuesday.

“I’m proud of our crew; we were dealt a curveball 24 hours before the match,” said Kendall Ronzano, the Pirates’ third-year head coach. “We found out two of our four middles weren’t coming with us. It’s a pretty big ask for our team to cover that and be competitive against a team with very active middles. It put a lot of pressure on our ends and setters to try and beat the block.”

Pirates sophomore libero JJ Laughlin filled in heroically at middle on short notice, but the the Golden Eagles had too much firepower.

The Golden Eagles (24-13), the fourth-place finisher in the Sierra Foothill Athletic League and Sac-Joaquin Section D-II champion, were led by 6-0 junior Hunter Larkin, 6-4 junior Jayden Steel, 6-6 sophomore Grayson Holcomb, and 6-5 senior Hayden Yarnes.

Ronzano said that had the Pirates (30-6) had a little bit more notice to prepare for her two players’ unexpected absence, the team would’ve fared better than they did. With the Wolfendens, the coach believes her team would’ve won.

“Skill-wise, we could totally beat this team,” she said. “It just messes with the flow. Head to head, we could’ve beat them and should’ve beat them, but we did not.”

Del Oro plays at No. 2 Amador Valley (27-11) in the regional semifinals on Thursday at 6 p.m. The Dons beat No. 7 Clovis North (20-14), 24-26, 25-20, 26-24, 25-23, on Tuesday.

Harbor jumped out to an early lead against Del Oro behind some aggressive serving, but the Golden Eagles rallied behind their middles, as the Pirates’ serving and serve-receive play dropped off.

The Golden Eagles jumped out to a double-digit lead in the second set. The Pirates made a substitution at setter and chipped away at Del Oro’s lead, but were unable to complete the comeback.

The Pirates switched to a 6-2 setup in the third set to get more help in the front row, but the Golden Eagles rolled with the momentum.

Noah Luksich and Abe Schmidt, the only two seniors on Harbor’s roster, helped pace the Pirates.

“This season meant a ton to me,” Luksich said. “I connected a lot with everyone and made a lot of friends. We had challenges and persevered. It was an amazing experience in many ways. It kinda sucks to lose, but you gotta lose at some point.”

Harbor took second place behind rival Santa Cruz, a team the Pirates hadn’t beaten in 3 1/2 years, in the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League play.

The Pirates peaked at the perfect time and knocked off the Cardinals in the SCCAL Tournament championship, and carried that momentum into the Central Coast Section D-II playoffs. Harbor, seeded No. 2, earned sweeps of No. 7 Burlingame, No. 3 Monterey, and No. 4 Monta Vista to win the program’s first section title.

The Pirates also moved up a spot for the second straight year to post the top team grade-point average (3.680) among volleyball teams in the CCS.

“We had ambitious goals, and we checked every single one of them off the list,” Ronzano said.

Ronzano thanked the Pirates’ administration, specifically athletics director James Gaynor Jr., for its support of the program.