Kennedy Celebration After Win Unrivaled

They screamed and yelled and bumped chests and stood on chairs, riding their emotion through the night.

And they had just enough left in the end.

Kennedy High rebounded from a 6-2 fifth-game deficit to defeat Granada Hills, 15-11, 15-10, 9-15, 12-15, 15-9 in a marathon Northwest Valley Conference boys’ volleyball match Thursday night.

And when it was over, they celebrated like they had just won a state title.

“Granada came in here thinking we were sorry,” said 6-6 Kennedy middle blocker Mike Whitmore, a Granada Hills transfer. “But we wanted to win so bad, it carried us over.”

The Golden Cougars (8-1, 5-1 in league play) desperately wanted to avenge an early season three-game loss to the Highlanders (7-2, 5-1). Especially after Granada Hills hitter Earnest Yun’s claim that the Golden Cougars were overrated.

“That got us motivated never to quit,” Kennedy Coach Mike Stanton said.

And in the first two games, Kennedy looked like it would make surprisingly quick work of Granada Hills.

The Golden Cougars were strong at the net early on, behind Whitmore (15 kills) and Brian Atkison.

Granada Hills, however, led by Ryan Kamins (27 kills) and Yun (18), scored five of the last six points in the third game to keep its hopes alive.

That was when errors began to catch up with both teams--especially Kennedy, which fell behind, 12-8, in the third game, only to cut the lead to 14-12 before losing the game on a block that went wide.

Suddenly, the emotion that carried Kennedy turned into fear.

The Golden Cougars looked genuinely scared as they began the fifth set, and three consecutive kills by Kamins put the Highlanders up, 6-2.

But a Kennedy timeout seemed to stir the emotion once again, and the Cougars tied the score at 6-6, then jumped ahead, 12-8.

Finally, a Granada Hills block attempt went wide, setting off a raucous celebration more than 2 1/2 hours after the match had begun.

“When we got down in the last game, they showed a lot of character,” Stanton said.

Setter and captain Michael Paloma, who had 52 assists for Kennedy, was one of the key motivators.

“Paloma did an outstanding job of keeping everybody level,” Stanton said.

Whitmore admitted that he let his emotions get the best of him at times. Late in the fourth game, for instance, he over-swung so powerfully that the ball sailed over the Granada Hills side and hit high on the far wall.

But for most of the night, Whitmore decoyed the Granada Hills front line, pushing the ball softly over their blocking lines and into the gaps.