Glendale volleyball defeats Hoover to notch first league win

GLENDALE — The Glendale High boys’ volleyball team sure knew how to recover from a setback in Friday’s Pacific League match against Hoover.

After surrendering the final eight points in an opening-game loss, the Nitros scored the first six points of the second game, boosting their confidence and deflating the Tornadoes.

Glendale won the second game, fought off a game-point in the third and cruised in the fourth, defeating the host Tornadoes, 10-25, 25-15, 26-24, 25-16, to earn its first league victory.

“We needed to step up because Hoover is a very scrappy team,” said Nitro Coach Taase Mose, whose team improved to 6-5, 1-3 in league. “In the first game, we weren’t ready yet.”

They were ready in the second game. Hoover (0-4 in league) might not have been.

The Nitros, led by setter Victor Bernardino and outside hitter Luis Trejo, got off to a quick start and never led by less than three, as they made quick work of the Tornadoes by scoring seven of the final eight points of the game.

“We fixed our passes and we fixed our mistakes,” said Bernardino, who had a match-high 19 assists.

The Tornadoes rebounded and appeared to be control in the third game until a series of unforced errors allowed the Nitros to rally to tie the score at 19. The rivals exchanged points and one-point leads to set up a thrilling finish.

Hoover had a 24-23 lead and a chance to close out the game, but another unforced error tied the score again. Glendale’s Josh Collado, who had six kills, followed the error with a kill set up by Bernardino and Trejo ended the game with the eighth of his match-high 11 kills.

“We got pumped up in the end of the game,” Trejo said. “We wanted that set and we got it.”

Glendale took control midway through the fourth game, including scoring seven unanswered points during one stretch for a 22-14 lead. The Nitros scored 10 of the final 12 points of the game for the win.

Senior Kevin Fontamillas had seven kills for the Nitros and teammate Kyle Hulguin had four.

Dan Sanidad had a team-high nine kills and Brandon Knight had eight kills for the Tornadoes, who also received 20 assists from Christian Pacificador, who was left puzzled by the Nitro victory.

“I don’t know how we let that get out of our hands,” Pacificador said. “In the last three games, we got overconfident. We let them believe that they could beat us.”