All-Area Girls’ Volleyball Player of the Year: Kerstein leads La Cañada back to prominence
Behind the rebirth of the La Cañada High girls’ volleyball team was renaissance player Chloe Kerstein.
To watch the Spartans’ success this season was to witness the culmination of a three-year push that included plenty of depths, but one big upswing that vaulted the Spartans to a Rio Hondo League title, key rivalry wins and a CIF Southern Section quarterfinal surge.
As La Cañada improved and grew, so too did the 6-foot senior outside hitter, who signed with Pomona-Pitzer College.
Kerstein was named to the All-CIF Southern Section Division IV team along with being selected the Rio Hondo League Most Valuable Player.
Kerstein backed those honors with 383 kills, 293 digs and 57 aces, while her Spartans finished 22-7 and 9-1 in league.
La Cañada won the league title and advanced to the quarterfinals of the CIF Southern Section playoffs, both for the first time since 2012.
For those efforts and more, Kerstein was voted the 2017 All-Area Girls’ Volleyball Player of the Year by the sports writers of the La Cañada Valley Sun, Glendale News-Press and Burbank Leader.
Kerstein is her school’s first award winner since Courtney McCutchan clinched the second of back-to-back honors in 2009.
“It was just so great this year,” Kerstein said. “Just coming from a place where it was hard to win. We had a lack of experience early on and it was real tough, but we learned and got better.”
Kerstein’s sophomore season in 2015 was notable for all the wrong reasons under first-year coach Chris Sullivan.
La Cañada finished 11-17 and 6-4 in the Rio Hondo League to tie for third. While past Spartans teams posted worse records, the 2015 version was the only one this century not to qualify for the postseason.
While Kerstein finished with 194 kills, the sophomore was a defensive liability, often rotated out and finished with 31 digs and seven blocks.
Her junior year, Kerstein saw improvement.
The Spartans tallied an 11-16 record, but finished alone in third and reached the playoffs, exiting in the first round to St. Joseph’s, 3-0.
She made it her mission to stay on the court. We became a better team because she became a better player.”
— Chris Sullivan, La Cañada coach
Kerstein took over the team lead in kills (262), while she finished with 84 digs and 21 blocks.
This season, the three-year starter wanted more inclusion.
“What made this team really good is that everyone contributed,” Kerstein said. “On any given day we could have a star player be the setter or be the libero. Everyone just contributed in a different way and everyone stepped up to the plate.”
Kerstein did not lead the team in kills (338) as that honor went to sophomore outside hitter Emily Weirick (342), an All-Area first-team choice.
Where Kerstein showed leadership, though, was on defense, as she was no longer rotated out and finished with 293 digs, which more than doubled her total from the past two seasons combined.
“She became a complete player this year,” Sullivan said. “She used to be rotated out all the time because of her defense. She made it her mission to stay on the court. We became a better team because she became a better player.”
That work coupled with the efforts of a senior-driven squad helped propel La Cañada back to prominence.
The first step for La Cañada was to reestablish itself as a player in its own city, which meant challenging Division I Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy.
The Tologs won the past four annual match-ups and didn’t even surrender a set.
All that changed when the teams met in the Dig for the Cure match at La Cañada on Oct. 7.
Behind 15 kills, 26 digs and two aces from Kerstein, the Spartans defeated the Tologs, 3-2.
Kerstein helped pull out a 16-14 fifth-game victory by picking up a critical dig and a kill on the same play that tied the set at 14 and kick-started a 3-0 spurt in the clincher.
The win was sweet redemption for Kerstein, who totaled six kills and one dig combined in two previous 3-0 defeats to Flintridge Sacred Heart.
“You knew Chloe wanted it; all the seniors wanted it,” said Sullivan as La Cañada notched its first victory in the series since 2012.
Besides Flintridge Sacred Heart, the Spartans had two more revenge matches, starting with Monrovia.
In her sophomore and juniors years, Kerstein’s Spartans were thumped in Monrovia by 3-0 scores.
In a passing-of-the-torch match, Kerstein finished with 20 kills, 12 digs, two aces and one block in the Spartans’ 3-2 triumph at defending league champion Monrovia on Sept. 26.
In two previous meetings at Monrovia, Kerstein combined for 16 kills and four digs.
“We couldn’t beat them before and weren’t that competitive,” Kerstein said. “To come into Monrovia and get a win, that was special.”
Even a season of redemption came with hiccups, which included the Spartans’ 3-2 loss two days later at San Marino for the squad’s lone league blemish.
That gaffe was eventually corrected when host La Cañada returned the favor via a 3-2 victory on Oct. 17 thanks to 18 kills, 19 digs and four aces from Kerstein.
“What made Chloe Kerstein great was that she was able to stay very composed during stressful situations on the court,” said Spartans libero Hailey Belcher, an All-Area second-team choice. “She doesn’t break down or anything like that. She perseveres.”
As for the postseason, La Cañada made a run.
Kerstein opened with 13 kills, seven digs and four aces in La Cañada’s dominant 3-0 victory over visiting Burbank in the Division IV first round on Halloween.
Two days later, that treat was followed by quite the trick as Kerstein tallied 21 kills, 27 digs and two aces in the Spartans’ 3-2 win at Rio Mesa in the second round.
The victory sent La Cañada into the quarterfinals for the first time since 2012.
In the swansong for Kerstein and five seniors total, the outside hitter finished with nine kills and seven digs in the Spartans’ 3-0 defeat to No. 3-seed Santa Monica on Nov. 4.
“The reason why we did so well is because we remember what it was like to lose,” Kerstein said. “We had to push through a lot of losing as a team to get here.
“The losses didn’t break us; they motivated us to do better.”
