3 Valley Teams Seek to Break Volleyball Jinx

Volleyball teams from Chatsworth, Harvard and El Camino Real highs will try to do something no Valley-area school has ever done as the 12th Palisades Invitational gets under way today--win the tournament.

The only Valley-area team to make the tournament final was Taft in 1976, led by Olympian Craig Buck.

“The team that wins this tournament can be considered one of the best in the area,” Palisades Coach Howard Enstedt said.

Chatsworth, which is the fourth-seeded team in the tournament, has the best chance of winning. The Chancellors are 11-2 and won their 50th consecutive West Valley League match Wednesday. They won the City Section 4-A Division championship in 1981 and 1984.

Harvard (9-2), which is ranked No. 3 in the Southern Section 3-A Division, would have been considered one of the favorites, but the Saracens lost All-Santa Fe League setter Geoff Given to a season-ending neck injury.

“The kids live in the Palisades area and they’ll be really up for this tournament. We haven’t done as well as we’d like in the past, but we’re always trying,” Harvard Coach Mark Zalin said.

El Camino Real, which finished second in the preseason Carson tournament, is 6-5 overall.

Santa Monica and Loyola, ranked 1-2 in the Southern Section 4-A Division poll, respectively, are the tournament’s top two seeded teams. Other schools in the 12-team event include Arcadia, the top-seeded team in the Southern Section 3-A, University, Clovis West of Fresno, Dos Pueblos of Santa Barbara and four Palisades teams comprising varsity and junior varsity members.