8 Valley City Teams Chase Volleyball Titles

The City Section girls’ high school volleyball playoffs will begin Saturday morning with eight Valley teams contending for division titles.

Pool play for the 12 4-A teams will begin at 8 a.m. at Cal State Dominguez Hills. Northwest Valley Conference champion Chatsworth (12-2), which lost in the semifinals to eventual champion Carson last year, is seeded third behind Carson and Palisades.

El Camino Real, the Northwest Valley’s second-place finisher, is seeded fifth. Taft and Cleveland, which tied for third place in the Northwest Valley, will face off today at 2:30 p.m. at Reseda High to determine the league’s final postseason berth.

In the 3-A, pool play will begin at 8 a.m. at El Camino College.

Birmingham, champion of the Mid-Valley League, is seeded second behind Garfield. The Braves lost to eventual City champion Garfield in the semifinals last year.

Van Nuys, the Mid-Valley’s second-place team, is seeded fifth, Grant sixth, Reseda seventh, and Sylmar 15th in the 16-team field.

The top two teams in the four-team pools will advance to the quarterfinals Wednesday.

“(Our) girls are really confident and think they can do well,” Chatsworth Coach Steve Berk said. “I hope that’s true. Sometimes we play outstanding. But other times, we don’t show the skills we have and look as inconsistent as we were a month ago.”