Crescenta Valley boys’ volleyball outlasts South Torrance in CIF thriller

LA CRESCENTA — An ability to overcome mistakes proved invaluable for the Crescenta Valley High boys’ volleyball team Tuesday evening.

Despite blowing leads and committing several key errors, the Falcons continually gritted their teeth and rallied to knock off visiting South Torrance, 28-30, 25-19, 21-25, 25-21, 15-13 in a CIF Southern Section Division II first-round playoff match that lasted two hours and 10 minutes.

With the victory, the Pacific League runner-up Falcons (26-6) earned a trip to Thursday’s second round versus Foothill League second seed Canyon Country Canyon (28-6) at a place to be determined via coin flip Wednesday morning.

“It seems like we’ve been in too many of these games,” Falcons Coach John Nelson said. “In fact, it feels like every game of ours lately has been like this. Maybe that’s a good thing since we’ve seemed to develop a way to survive.”

Falcons senior outside hitter Ray Barsemian led all players with 24 kills and delivered the knockout blow in the deciding fifth game when he took a pass from senior setter Eric Shin (match-high 58 assists) and buried a kill back row for the winner.

“We just picked each other up the entire game,” Barsemian said. “Sure, everyone made mistakes, but you can’t focus on that. You have to keep going forward and focus on the next point.”

In the fifth game, the Falcons committed a service error, a centerline violation and were called for a rare rotation violation among the gaffes.

Yet, Crescenta Valley continued to battle back, including from an 8-7 deficit by scoring two quick points and never trailing again.

Tied at 10, the Falcons scored consecutive points on a kill from senior outside Min Kim (19 kills) and a block from senior middle Reid Chappell (10 kills and four blocks).

Pioneer League runner-up South Torrance (14-15) pushed back and tied the game at 13 on an ace from Troy Ellis (13 kills and five aces) before Min set his sideline into a frenzy with a kill that put the game at match-point.

“The difference today was high energy, we never stopped giving everything we had,” Min said. “We made some mistakes, but we didn’t call each other out. Each new point was a new chance – that’s how we treated it.”

Crescenta Valley raced out to a 14-10 lead in the fourth game before the Spartans scored four of the next five points to pull within 15-14 on a lift violation against the Falcons.

To its credit, Crescenta Valley never gave up the lead even, though South Torrance knotted the score at 21 on an ace from Ellis.

The Falcons responded to the threat with four straight points capped on a game-winning kill from Min that evened the match at 2.

Crescenta Valley’s other victory came in the second game.

There, the Falcons enjoyed perhaps the only real breather of the entire match, as Crescenta Valley jumped out to a 21-15 advantage before settling for a 25-19 victory.

The win came after a disastrous first-game setback.

Crescenta Valley led, 24-21, after a kill from Chappell. However, a Spartans kill was followed by back-to-back centerline violations from the Falcons that tied the score at 24.

Both teams traded points and leads before a kill from Phillip Hunter (eight kills and four blocks) secured South Torrance a wild 30-28 win in the first game.

As for the third game, the Falcons knotted the score at 17 after an ace from Barsemian, but never took the lead, instead falling behind, 24-21, before losing the game on another centerline violation.

“I’m more relieved than excited about the win,” Nelson said. “The good thing about tonight is that we could have lost, but we didn’t. We found a way to win.”