South Pasadena High boys’ volleyball wins first CIF title

ORANGE – All the South Pasadena High boys’ volleyball team had known when it came to CIF championship matches was sweeps.

That continued for the Tigers in the CIF Southern Section Division III finals Saturday.

PHOTOS: South Pasadena boys’ volleyball wins CIF Division III championship

For the first time, they were able to celebrate afterward, though. South Pasadena won its first-ever CIF title in its third trip to the final round with a 27-25, 25-13, 26-24 victory over Camarillo at Santiago Canyon College on Saturday afternoon.

“I wasn’t intimidated by them at all,” said South Pasadena Coach Ben Diaz, who knew if a championship wasn’t enough motivation, his team had revenge to play for. “I told them the guys remember what they did to you guys last year, get that grudge and go out there and get them.”

The Tigers (29-4), whose previous championship berths came in 2005 and 1983, were knocked out of the playoffs by the Scorpions (29-6-1), 29-31, 25-21, 25-20, 25-17, a year ago.

As it’d done all year, South Pas displayed its resilience Saturday by overcoming two game-points in the opener and a 23-21 deficit in the third frame.

“I wasn’t worried one point the whole game, not one point. No, not even [in the first game],” South Pasadena senior captain Robert Adamson said. “We play down all the time, we know what to do; it’s cool.”

Adamson, who was showered with “MVP” chants by the South Pasadena faithful, tallied a match-high 14 kills, and led a core of impact seniors. Middle blocker Jason Qui provided the game-winning blocks in the opener and closer, while libero Nathan Lee tallied 16 digs and middle Quinn Hutchings provided an impressive nine blocks.

Diaz said the addition of first-year players freshmen brother Max (eight kills) and Greg Luck and sophomore transfer from China Richard Yu (11 kills) pushed his team over the top this year.

“The good thing about our team is we have so much depth,” said South Pas co-senior captain David Barker, who had 34 assists. “That’s obviously what volleyball is all about, you’ve got to spread it out and if you spread it out the blockers have nowhere to go.”

South Pasadena set the tone in the first game – the tensest of the three with 14 ties and five lead changes.

The Scorpions held game-point twice, but opened the door for South Pas by committing service errors each time and finishing with 11 unforced errors in the game.

“I told the guys we’ve been in this before and we work on this in practice,” Diaz said. “You’re down and I make you run if you lose, as simple as that. It’s the same exact thing, except if you win this it’s going to be a million times better.”

With the game tied at 25, Greg Luck fired a serve the Scorpions assumed was going out, but just snuck in front of the back line. Qui and Adamson teamed up for the game-winning block, stuffing Camarillo’s Owen Yoshimoto (13 kills) at the net.

With 10 ties and six lead changes, the third game was also tightly contested. Camarillo used a 4-0 run to take a 12-8 lead, but South Pasadena knotted the contest back at 16. A 4-1 Scorpions spurt gave them another late lead, 23-21.

“Our whole motto this year has been work and get out of these holes and if we work together and know what we’re doing we can get out of this,” Barker said.

An Adamson kill gave the Tigers side out and a Camarillo hitting error and Yu kill forced match-point, 24-23.

Brandon Tran delayed the inevitable for Camarillo with a kill, but for the second time a Qui block sealed the game and match after a Yu kill the play before.

With Camarillo reeling and South Pasadena soaring from the first game, the Tigers couldn’t miss in the second game with Adamson collecting five kills, Yu tallying four and Max Luck adding three in the frame.

South Pas used a 4-0 run to tie the set at 9 and a 6-0 spurt to take a commanding 15-10 lead. The Tigers stretched it to 21-12 before cruising to the win on a beautifully drawn-up play. Barker drew Camarillo’s middles to the center of the net with a deceptive set that appeared to be headed to Qui before Yu seemingly soared up from out of nowhere for the wide-open spike.

While Diaz realized this may have been a perfect-storm season for his squad, he feels the win is not only the beginning of things to come for South Pasadena, but the San Gabriel Valley.

“It’s the first championship in school history; it means a lot,” Diaz said. “It means volleyball is changing in our area. We’re a bunch of city boys; we have no beach in our area. What we had to feed off was a lot of practice and the guys worked for it. We didn’t get lucky.”