Palisades Volleyball Sweeps to Regional Finals

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

Losing in the first round of the City volleyball playoffs did not sit well for Palisades High senior Erin Hogan.    

“After we got swept by Venice me and the other seniors vowed not to let it happen again in state,” Hogan said. “We’d never lost our first match in the playoffs before—that just doesn’t happen at Palisades—and it wasn’t a good feeling.”

She and her teammates used that stinging loss to their archrivals as motivation heading into the Southern California Regional playoffs and they did not drop a set in their first three matches in Division IV.

“We look up at the banner in the gym… Palisades hasn’t won a state championship since 1979,” Hogan added. “We want to be the next team to do it.”

Seeded third out of 16 teams the Dolphins opened the tournament at home with a 25-14, 25-20, 25-20 victory over No. 14 Imperial last Tuesday and followed that up with a 25-8, 25-17, 25-15 home win las Thursday against No. 11 Santa Fe. 

On Saturday, Palisades traveled  35 miles north to Canyon Country to take on Santa Clarita Christian and the second-seeded Cardinals were  hoping to win for the 14th time in 15 matches, their only loss since late September coming at the hands of Simi Valley in the Southern Section Division 6 semifinals.   

Spurred on by a boisterous home crowd tightly packed in its tiny gym, Santa Clarita Christian staved off four set points before succumbing, 31-29, in a marathon first set that ultimately decided the outcome.

“If we hadn’t won that first set we probably would’ve lost,” Hogan said. “Their crowd was going crazy, they were loud and that would’ve given them all the momentum, but when we won it sort of deflated them and took the crowd out of it.”

Like they had in the first set, the teams traded points until the score was 20-20 in the second, but Palisades inched ahead 24-23 and took a two-set lead when the Cardinals (26-4) were called for double contact.

That seemed to take all the wind out of the home team’s sails as the Dolphins raced to a 10-5 advantage in the third set and took it 25-15 to complete the sweep.

“We started going deep corner and identifying who to serve to more in that last set,” said Hogan, whose older sister Alexa was an All-City middle blocker for Palisades. “We all embrace this opportunity, we’re playing for each other. There’s no better way to erase that Venice loss than by winning this tournament. It would be better than winning City.”    

Palisades (34-10) hit the road again Tuesday to face top-seeded Central Valley Christian (25-14) in Visalia. The Cavaliers were the Central Section Division II runner-ups, losing in five sets to Clovis Buchanan. They defeated United Christian Academy, Holtville and Santa Ynez en route to the regional finals.      

“If we’re going to lose at least we’ll know we lost to a good team,” Hogan said. We’re proud to have made it this far,h but when you get this close you want to finish it off.”

The winner of Tuesday’s match will play for the Division IV state championship Saturday at 11 a.m. at Santiago Canyon College in Orange against the winner of the Northern Californa Regional final between ninth-seeded Ripon Christian (33-6) and  No. 11 Head-Royce (33-7) of Oakland.