Taft, Granada Hills Fire Opening Volleys

The Taft High boys’ volleyball team had 14 service aces and a .333 hitting percentage in a 15-1, 15-2, 15-3 victory over Banning on Tuesday night in a City Section 4-A Division first-round match that lasted less than 45 minutes at Taft.

Mike Gledhill had eight kills and Elan Yakovee had five aces for the second-seeded Toreadors (13-0). Taft had 24 kills and 10 errors in 42 attempts.

In other 4-A Division first-round matches:

Kennedy d. Bell, 15-8, 15-3, 15-8--The Golden Cougars (11-3) dismantled Bell (3-10) at Kennedy.

Jeff Toon, who has signed a letter of intent with Cal State Northridge, paced Kennedy with 10 kills. Andrew Choy had 21 assists.

Kennedy will face Westchester in the quarterfinals.

Westchester d. Chatsworth, 15-11, 15-5, 12-15, 15-8--David Lurth had 29 kills, 17 digs and 13 blocks and Scott Davis had 72 assists for 11th-seeded Chatsworth (6-8) in a first-round match at sixth-seeded Westchester.

Shekabe Nazari contributed 21 kills and 19 digs and Aaron Schwartzman added 12 kills and 16 digs for the Chancellors.

John Tanner had 20 kills and Henok Tirfe had 31 assists for the Comets (10-4).

Palisades d. Birmingham, 15-0, 15-1, 15-1--The 16th-seeded Braves (4-9) lasted just under one hour against top-seeded Palisades in a match at Palisades.

3-A DIVISION

Monroe d. L.A. CES, 15-3, 15-5, 15-1--The top-seeded Vikings, Valley Pac-8 Conference champions, breezed in a first-round match at Monroe.

Hugo Cabadas had five kills, and Jose Sanchez and Wes Degracia each had four kills for Monroe (11-3). James Taruc had 10 assists for Monroe.

Sylmar d. Hamilton, 15-7, 15-3, 15-5--Fifth-seeded Sylmar had 13 kills by Ervin Gonzalez and 35 assists by Fabian Landeros at Sylmar.

Cesar Chavez had 10 kills and Lucas Johnson had four blocks for Sylmar (10-4).

Poly d. Fremont, 15-4, 15-2, 15-12--Gilbert Ramos had 16 kills and James Word had 12 kills for the third-seeded Parrots at Poly.

Gabino Quiroz had 33 assists for Poly (11-3), which will host Fairfax in the quarterfinals.

Van Nuys d. Franklin, 15-13, 15-10, 15-13--David Chae had 70 assists and six blocks for the eighth-seeded Wolves (10-4), who won a home match and will face top-seeded Monroe in the quarterfinals.

Ioannis Avramis had 20 kills, 16 blocks and 13 digs for Van Nuys and Tetsuya Kosaka added 16 kills and 20 digs.

Van Nuys, which had 52 blocks in the match, lost to Monroe twice in Valley Pac-8 Conference play.

Tony Vong had 12 kills and Carlos Sanchez and Brian Berumen each had 11 kills for Franklin (8-6).