El Camino Real girls volleyball coach Alyssa Lee sent a text message to Taft volleyball coach Arman Mercado after each of them had won their respective CIF LA City Section Open Division semifinal matches.
“Not looking forward to playing you for the 100th time,” she said, a good-natured joke alluding to how tough it can be to play a familiar opponent.
The two West Valley League teams will meet for the fourth time this season in the Open Division championships at Cal State Northridge’s Premier America Credit Union Arena on Friday at 8 p.m. in what will be a challenging match, and also a testament to the West Valley League.
All six of the league’s teams were placed in the Open Division when the playoff pairings were released. Taft (40-10), the league champion, was the No. 3-seeded team and El Camino Real (22-8), the league runner-up, was the No. 4 seed.
“There’s no room to take a breather,” Lee said. “During league, that definitely trains us better and prepares us for the playoff season to make sure we’re staying focused for each match and we’re not underestimating any team.”
Taft beat second-seeded Venice in five sets in the semifinals to advance to the championships. Mercado was pleased with the mental toughness the team had after a net call that went in Venice’s favor tied the fourth set at 22-all and the Gondos eventually forced a fifth set.
“We lost that fourth set but we could’ve easily said hey, blame this, blame that,” Mercado said, “but they knew in the fifth set they had to refocus.”
Friday will be the Toreadors’ second championship match in as many years after falling to Granada Hills last season. Taft returned just one starter from that team in Claire Mussell, but most of this season’s players were in attendance for that championship after some JV call-ups.
Mussell has come up with timely blocks throughout playoffs that give her teammates confidence. Junior setter Francine Baltazar has stepped up to take on blocking duties in the front and the back row.
El Camino Real’s semifinal match against first-seeded Palisades also went to five sets. Aggressive serving helped the Royals pull off the upset and advance to the finals.
Middle blocker Niki Ghasemi and libero Anika Bernardo’s connection helped keep pressure on Palisades. Claire Grasteit has moved to opposite this season after playing middle blocker last year and the senior has grown in terms of passing and defense.
“She is our most dominant offensive player by far,” Lee said. “And she has a very steady personality on the court and maintains great composure for the rest of the team.”
Taft is well aware of the Royals’ standout players as El Camino Real is well aware of the Toreadors’ after multiple meetings this season. The level of familiarity that the two teams have makes game planning a challenge.
“At this point it really just telling our team, hey, this is possibly what they’re going to do,” Mercado said. “We’ll pick a certain game plan that the other team is doing. So we’ll present that to our team and say look, if they start picking on you, this is how we’re going to counter it.”
The setting will be entirely new, however. Premier America Credit Union Arena, casually known as the Matadome, will give the teams a college volleyball experience and maybe even refresh the competition.
“They’ve been talking about this since day one,” Lee said, “so I think its really going to sink in when you walk into that gym and kind of sit there and take in this college court that you’re going to play on and this is the next level — can we step up to the plate?”