Palisades Trio Lifts Archer Volleyball to New Heights
By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor
When you need roadside assistance, you call Triple A. When the Archer School for Girls volleyball team needs a side out, it calls on the A-Team.
Palisadians Andrea Campos, Amelia Nathanson and Alizeh Jarrahy helped the Panthers to the CIF Southern Section Division 7 championship last fall and they began this season determined to lead Archer to the Division 6 title. The team moved a step closer on Saturday night with a four-set win against host Whittier in the Sweet 16 and traveled 100 miles south to Romoland to take on Heritage in a quarterfinal matchup yesterday.
“We carpool together, we like to hang out in the new Village or at Third Street Promenade,” said Campos, the team captain and All-CIF setter who had 345 assists, 84 digs and 35 aces as a sophomore. “We like going to see funny movies and occasionally the ones that make you cry.”
Fittingly, Campos set Jarrahy for a kill to open Saturday’s match and she finished with 40 assists,
six kills, a dig and an ace. Nathanson lives in the El Medio neighborhood and went to Village School. She led the Panthers with 264 kills as a hitter last fall but switched to libero this season and had 18 digs and two aces against Whittier. Jarrahy, who plays opposite, lives in the Alphabet Streets and was once Campos’ teammate on an AYSO Region 69 All-Star team.
Their names all start with ‘A’ but that’s hardly the only thing the Palisades girls have in common. All are juniors, all are starters, all play for the same club (Actyve) and they all put winning first.
“We know what each other is going to do,” said Nathanson, who as a freshman learned from Palisadian Zoe Pelikan, then the star setter. “It would be cool to win [CIF] this year and our senior year, too.”
Campos, who played multiple sports at Corpus Christi School and lives in the Huntington, went to Marymount as a freshman but believes Archer (on Sunset Blvd. in Brentwood) is a better fit.
“We lost seven seniors but the best part about this team is how it’s come together,” Jarrahy said after pounding nine kills Saturday.
Archer’s future is bright with more Palisadians in the program: Zoe Berman on JV and Dani Fenster, Cate Childers, Gemma Larbalestier, Tess Hubbard and Julia Citron on middle school teams.
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