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October 1, 2024x
By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X
One thing was certain when the Norwalk High girls volleyball team hosted Gahr High last Thursday in a pivotal Gateway League match to end the first round. Gahr was either going to snap a season-long six match losing streak, or the Lancers were going to defeat the Gladiators for the first time in five matches.
The latter happened, but not without some controversy as Norwalk escaped with a 25-16, 25-18, 19-25, 27-25 victory. After Norwalk senior middle blocker Samantha Munoz had given her team a 26-25 lead, the second time the Lancers had led in the set, Munoz had a tip at the net that tricked over and landed on Gahr’s side to end the match. After several minutes of discussion between a member of the Gahr coaching staff and Joe Soto, the down referee, the match was officially over.
“Honestly, I saw [Munoz] hit the net first,” said Gahr assistant coach Alex Quan-Madrid. “I saw her hand kind of swiping it. That’s what I feel like I saw, and obviously it’s a bang-bang type of play. So it’s hard to see everything that happened. I thought at the worst, we could have gotten a replay, just to be fair to the teams.
“I didn’t hear the exact conversation; I kind of had glimpses of it,” he later said. “But I think the main thing is that, as a former ref, I understand that the down ref is the one making the net call and the up ref is calling other things. So, that should have been the down ref’s call.”
“It was nerve-wracking,” said Norwalk head coach Paola Nava. “With the momentum and everything, I just told these girls now we have to expect everything. We have to do our job; play clean volleyball. At the net, we were making a lot of errors into the net, and we were bumping into each other when balls were coming over.”
How important was the match as the first round of league play concluded? The win put Norwalk, 11-12 overall, 2-2 in league action and good for third place while Gahr dropped to 15-16, 0-4. Had Gahr come out victorious, there would have been a tie for third place along with La Mirada High. With four matches left in the regular season, Downey High stands in first place while Warren High had a 3-1 league mark.
Gahr jumped out to a 6-2 lead in the opening set on the strength of three straight aces from junior outside hitter Genesis Islas and one from sophomore setter Lauren Blanco. The Gladiators would have the lead until Norwalk senior setter Zaidee Zepeda’s first kill tied the set at 10-10 to end the first rotation, then served an ace for her team’s second lead of the set. Serving would be the story of the first set as the Lancers had nine aces while the Gladiators had five. But despite the win, Norwalk also had five serving errors in the set.
“We definitely came out with a lot of errors; missed served and miscommunication,” said Nava. “I’m not sure if it was a mental stuff the girls were kind of thinking where I’m not aware of in their head or if it was an off day. But there were a lot of controlled errors that we made on our end that could have easily been solved. It was a messy win; the girls did pull it off. But I think it could have been a definitely cleaner game.”
Other than three ties in the early moments of the second set, Norwalk never trailed in the second set as Munoz got her game into high gear. Held to no kills in the first set, Munoz had seven in the second set as the Lancers had scoring stretches of six in seven points, making it 15-9, and five in six points, making it 21-14.
“I think I tried my best to keep the energy going and let the girls know that [if we give up] one point, then just shake it off,” said Munoz. “I think we did get a little comfortable at first. But we still pushed through and that’s all that matters.”
The third set would feature five ties and two lead changes within the first rotation, and Zepeda’s second kill of the match put Norwalk up 16-15. But a kill from Gahr freshman outside hitter Violet Hackworth gave the serve to sophomore libero Jayden Sydenham where she had a pair of aces after senior outside hitter Kyla Jones slammed her sixth kill. After an ace from Norwalk senior opposite hitter Diana Avina, Jones had a kill, then served the final five points of the set.
With Gahr feeling it was gaining the momentum edge of the match, it reeled off eight straight points early in the fourth set thanks to Sydenham’s six aces. Later in the first rotation, the ninth kill from Jones put Gahr up 18-9.
But, as she has done all season long, Norwalk sophomore outside hitter Mirei Sanchez had her best stretch of the match. The 6’1” star had five kills to take her team’s deficit from eight points to four.
“I think that’s the tricky thing about volleyball,” said Quan-Madrid. “It’s very much a game of momentum. You can see a good team win [the first] two and then lose three straight or be on a 10-point run and all of a sudden you give up a 10-point run.”
Following a timeout, it was Avina’s turn to shine as she had a kill and three aces as the Lancers roared back to tie the set at 19-19. Avina had been the fourth server through the first three sets, but Nava changed the serving rotation for the fourth set, and it paid off. Nava’s first three servers were now the last three servers as it was Avina, Sanchez and junior libero Nayeli Sanchez.
“Overall, our opposite [hitter] Diana is a really, really strong server,” said Nava. “She places the ball very well. Granite, she does make those serving errors here and there. But overall, her consistency in serving is there. She has a lot of runs. In every match that we’ve played, she’s gone on multiple serving runs.”
Gahr was inching closer to a win and sending it to a fifth set when the ninth ace from Sydenham put the Gladiators up 23-20, and a serve into the net moments later put Gahr up 24-21. But the 18th and final kill from Mirei Sanchez and two aces from Zepeda tied the score at 24-24. Hackworth’s 11th kill gave Gahr its second set point, but another serving error, the 17th for the Gladiators, allowed Munoz to do her thing to end the match.
“She’s been great; she has one of the best attitudes on the team,” said Quan-Madrid of Hackworth. “She has a drive that’s really hard to coach. So, to have her out there competing at that high level, really going hard every single time and taking ownership for every mistake she makes, is really a joy to have a player like that. We have a lot of high hopes for her for the upcoming years.”
Jones, the most experienced returning player, had 10 kills while junior Jessalyn Ecevedo pitched in with four kills. Gahr would also serve 24 aces with nine coming from Sydenham and eight more from Islas.
“We have a pretty big senior in Kyla Jones right now and we have a couple of other seniors that have contributed a lot,” said Quan-Madrid. “But the majority of our team is pretty young. We have a little bit of inexperience, but there’s definitely a learning gap that we had to get to, to get to where we are right now. I feel like as frustrating as these losses can feel sometimes, I’m really proud of the work that they’ve done to close that skill gap that can be so competitive at times.”
Besides the performances from Munoz and Mirei Sanchez, senior opposite hitter Brenda Quezada quietly had seven kills. Avina had seven aces, followed by six from Zepeda and five from Mirei Sanchez.
“It was definitely important [to win],” said Munoz. “Obviously, we’re in a new league, so there’s a lot more [better] competition. I think we worked hard; we had a little ups and downs throughout the game, but we definitely pushed through.”
Gahr began the second round of league against La Mirada on Oct. 3 and will host Downey on Tuesday before travelling to Warren on Thursday. Gahr went 22-12 last season and tied for third place in the league. With the 37 combined wins in just under two full seasons, the Gladiators have one more than winning 18 each in the 2018 and 2019 seasons. It’s the best two-year, or close to two-year stretch by Gahr in over 25 seasons.
“I think this team is more skilled than last [season’s] team,” said Quan-Madrid. “But the last team, because of that senior leadership; that four years of [high school] experience…it’s a different team. It’s really hard to compare apples to oranges. It is disappointing to see that we don’t have the record to reflect the growth and the skill that we believe the team has and that we’ve seen the team do.”
“The first two sets I think we kind of took control on our serving side and we were placing balls,” said Nava. “Coach Enrique [Galicia] and I were letting the girls know where to serve. I think we had a pretty good grip on that. In the third set, [Gahr] had their libero change and I think it definitely had an advantage on their side. I think our girls took it by surprise and they got frazzled by it.”
She continued by saying Gahr did not look like a team that had lost six straight matches. After visiting La Mirada this past Tuesday, Norwalk hosted Downey on Oct. 3 and will entertain Warren on Tuesday.
“This league can change up and down in a matter of seconds,” said Nava. “I’m not saying [Downey and Warren] are not beatable; we could have put up better fights and I think next time we match up with them, we will. The girls are still hungry, and they understand a lot can change with these [next] four games.”
