By Loren Kopff
The first round of the Suburban League girls volleyball will come to an end on Tuesday and the four teams who figure to automatically qualify for the California Interscholastic Federation-Southern Section playoffs are beginning to pull away from the other three teams. And entering action on Oct. 10, three teams were tied for second place, a game behind first place La Mirada.
The Matadores were 4-0 in league action and travelled to Norwalk on Oct. 10 with first place on the line. Cerritos, Mayfair and Norwalk were all 3-1 while Bellflower and John Glenn both had one league victory in five matches. The first half ends with Artesia visiting Cerritos and Norwalk going to the east side of town to face its city rival. On Thursday, Artesia visits La Mirada, Cerritos goes to Bellflower and Glenn hosts Mayfair.
In San Gabriel Valley League action, Gahr (6-11 overall, 1-1) hosted first place Downey on Oct. 10 and will end the first round on Thursday with a trip to Lynwood. The Gladiators have played a pair of five-set matches to begin league play, falling to Warren last Thursday before knocking off Paramount this past Tuesday.
Valley Christian (15-4, 1-1) was swept by Village Christian this past Tuesday and hosted Heritage Christian on Oct. 10. The Lady Crusaders will visit league leading Whittier Christian on Tuesday to end the first round of Olympic League action.
Whitney (4-4, 2-2) has lost three straight matches, including the past two to Academy League foes. The Lady Wildcats will visit Oxford Academy tonight, Downey Calvary Chapel on Tuesday and Brethren Christian on Thursday. Whitney and Oxford Academy are battling for the final automatic playoff berth from the league.
FOOTBALL
After taking a week off, Gahr (2-3) opened the San Gabriel Valley League on Oct. 10 with a home game against winless Warren. The Gladiators will have one more home game the rest of the season. John Glenn dropped to 0-5 following a 49-6 setback to La Mirada last Friday. The Eagles have scored 13 points in their last three games. Valley Christian’s second half rally against St. Anthony last Friday night came up short as the Crusaders lost 42-32. V.C. (1-4) will visit Whittier Christian tonight in the Olympic League opener.
Finally, a side bar to Artesia’s 43-22 home victory over Cerritos last Friday night was the return of the victory bell. Many years ago, the victory bell was stolen from the quad on the Artesia High campus. It was a fixture of the high school as players and fans would march to the quad after each Artesia win and ring the bell.
Artesia head coach Joe Veach was told last year that a new one would be ordered and delivered at the end of this season. However, he was informed last week that it would arrive just in time for the Cerritos game.
The return of the victory bell coincided with Artesia winning the Silver Milk Barrel for the first time since 2008. The trophy goes to the winner of the ABC Unified School District. The seniors on this year’s team went 1-9 as freshmen with the lone victory coming against Cerritos.
“We won it in 2008 and after that, we thought we were going to have a good run there,” Veach said. “But things didn’t work out and we had a rough patch. It’s great that we could do this [tonight].”
CROSS COUNTRY
The Cerritos boys won the Warren Invitational last Saturday despite missing Arthur Caliz and Isaac Kim who had participated in every meet up to last Saturday’s event. The Dons were paced by seniors Joshua Quarles, who had the sixth best time in school history at 15:43, Jonathan Carranza (15:56), who had the 10th best time in school history and Shrineel Patel, who placed two seconds behind to claim the 11th best mark in school history. Freshman Bill Chuang (16:12) and junior Christian Cortez (16:29) rounded out the top five Cerritos runners.