Julian Awes Foes, But Can’t Defeat Them

People couldn’t stop congratulating Trevor Julian, which was kind of humorous, considering they were all from the opposing team.

Everybody seemed to be in awe of Julian’s 50 kills for Harvard-Westlake High in a Mission League boys’ volleyball match against Loyola, the No. 2 team in the Southern Section Division I.

But Loyola put up better team numbers and, with a 7-15, 15-6, 15-7, 15-13 victory Friday night, moved closer to its first outright league title.

Harvard-Westlake (8-4, 6-2 in league play) and Loyola (12-0, 9-0) shared the league title two years ago, and the Wolverines have claimed a piece of the title in each of the past four seasons. But their time is apparently up.

They might, however, win something before they go down.

“We may not win league,” Coach Jess Quiroz said. “But I think we’ve got the MVP.”

Julian, who accepted a scholarship to USC, and Loyola’s Don Killian, who has committed to Pepperdine, waged a serious battle of “Beat This.”

Killian finished with 25 kills and, had he been on a playground, he would have been the kid with bigger friends.

Three of his teammates registered double figures in kills, including 6-foot-7 Curt Toppel, who had 21.

Julian was pretty much on his own. Jon Katz was the only other Wolverine to hit double figures in kills, with 14.

Still, it was Killian and a slew of teammates that approached Julian after the match, one of them saying, “You’re the man.”

The Wolverines brought their serve to the court in game one, scored points on 10 of their first 17 serves and took a stunning 10-0 lead.

“They won pretty handily [last time] and came out thinking they’d do the same thing,” Julian said of the Cubs, who beat Harvard-Westlake last month in four games.

With the exception of Julian, the Wolverines returned to earth in the second and third games and put up relatively little resistance.

The fourth game, however, was a good one for the Wolverines, the No. 4 team in Division III.

Trailing, 14-10, they fought off six match points before Toppel ended the match on a block.