Chaminade Restores Order With Win : Favored Eagles Struggle Against Notre Dame in a 5-Game Marathon

It has been an unusual year for the San Fernando Valley League in girls’ volleyball. Perennial powers Chaminade High and Louisville have struggled, perennial loser Bell-Jeff has sparkled and perennial also-rans Alemany and Notre Dame also have won.

“Different teams are losing. The harder teams are losing to the easier teams and they’re losing to the other hard teams. You know what I mean?” Chaminade outside hitter Kim Kisylia said. “Everyone is just really screwed up.”

Order returned to the league Tuesday night when Chaminade defeated Notre Dame, but that doesn’t mean everything has been resolved to Kisylia’s satisfaction.

The Eagles struggled to win, 15-13, 12-15, 11-15, 16-14, 15-10, in a 2 1/2-hour marathon at Notre Dame that left Kisylia shaking her head and her coach grasping his chest.

“That was so exciting,” Kisylia. “I was so scared because they’re a good team and I thought we were going to lose.

“This league is really close. Really close.”

Marvin Hall, Chaminade’s first-year coach, did not expect the league to prove so difficult for the Eagles, who have 2 league titles and 2 second-place finishes in the past 4 years. Although Chaminade (7-4, 4-1 in league play) finished the first half of league play in first place, the Eagles have been extended to 5 games twice and defeated second-place Bell-Jeff in a 3-game match that “seemed like eight games,” Hall said.

“This league is so close, it’s ridiculous,” Hall said. “I don’t know if I can make it through the second half. This might be my last breath.”

Chaminade holds a 1-game lead over Bell-Jeff, Alemany and Louisville, which have identical 3-2 league records.

To further muddle the league picture, Louisville plays at Notre Dame and Bell-Jeff faces Alemany on Thursday.

But if Hall thinks his team has had some close calls, he should try sitting on the Notre Dame bench. All 3 of the Knights’ league losses have been in 5 games.

“We have to learn how to finish out a match,” Coach Ann McClung said. “We just didn’t have the ‘timeliness’ factor. Things didn’t happen when they had to.”

After losing the first game, Notre Dame (9-4, 2-3) jumped to large leads in the next 2 games and held off Chaminade rallies. Notre Dame rallied from a 13-7 deficit in the fourth game to tie the score, 14-14, but the Eagles scored the last 2 points to send the match to a fifth game.

Notre Dame led in that final game, 8-4, but Chaminade outscored the Knights, 11-2, to win the match. Amy Bloodgood served 5 consecutive points to put the Eagles ahead, 9-8. Notre Dame scored 2 of the next 3 points to tie the score, 10-10. But Chaminade won the last 5 points.

“I really feel like we should have beaten them,” McClung said. “We were in that game. We had that game.”