GATEWAY LEAGUE GIRLS VOLLEYBALL: Cerritos dominates Gahr in fourth set to win league opener

September 16, 2026

By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X

Two city rivals who are now in the same league for the first time in over 30 years kicked off the debut of the new Gateway League opener last Thursday with pure intensity. On one side of the volleyball court was Cerritos High, which dons, no pun intended, 15 league championships while on the other side was Gahr High, with 23 league championships to its credit.

We’ll have to wait a few more weeks to see if either school can add to those numbers, but for now, Cerritos has the advantage following a 25-12, 24-26, 30-28, 25-11 victory. The Dons have won 10 of 14 meetings against Gahr since 2012, including the last six matches.

And for Cerritos senior outside hitter and team captain Ceana Merino, who is in her third season on varsity with over 75 high school matches to her credit, she admitted this was the best win she has ever had with the Dons.

“We have always wanted to play this game as they are our rivals, and they always wanted to talk just a bit,” said Merino. “So it made sense that we were angry and all of us wanted to push a little bit more.”

“I think this is what’s going to be great for both of our programs; to play competitive rival games that are meaningful to have consequences for league [placements] and playoffs,” said Cerritos head coach David Cuthbert. “It was a great game, and I’ve been looking forward to this for a couple of years once we knew [the new Suburban Valley Conference] was going to happen.

“This is what we need and what our kids need; for both us and Gahr,” he continued. “I think it’s great for both of us to have; two great teams from the city of Cerritos going at it in league.”

Gahr head coach Charity Dennis had similar inputs on the match, saying that her team viewed it as the first league match, adding that the team was excited to start the league out on a strong note and that they are excited to face Cerritos when the second round on league action begins on Sept. 29.

Cerritos went wire to wire in the first set, gaining leads of 6-2, 11-5 and 21-9 as serving was paramount in the beginning with Merino depositing four of her team’s seven aces while five players had at least one of the 12 kills the Dons collected. Merino was already making ways to have a stellar match as she accounted for seven points, including four straight aces in the second serving rotation to open the lead to 21-8.

“In the first set, I believe that we just played our own game and was consistent with our energy,” said Merino. “We were able to get a lot of our serves in and were able to move it around a lot to play with different players.”

The middle two sets were everything that would be expected from two city rivals who entered the game with a combined record of 26-7. The second set featured 13 ties and seven lead changes with neither team leading by more than two points through the first serving rotation.

The Dons led 17-12 after junior outside hitter Ally Veron completed a five-point scoring spree with her sixth kill of the match. But the Gladiators would dominate the remainder of the set, first going on a 6-2 run, then tying the set three times before finding themselves down 24-22. But a serving error gave them new life and freshman outside hitter Kenzie Vikchai served the final three points, two coming off aces and the other on a block from sophomore middle blocker Amira Benton.

“It was a little bit of a slow start in the first set, but I thought in the second and third sets, we showed up competing hard,” said Dennis. “It’s kind of a testament to the team and their fight. They are competitors; they’ll get after it.”

The third set was almost similar to the second set in that there were 11 ties and six lead changes. But this time, the Gladiators held a 14-7 advantage until a serving error allowed junior libero Chloe Gomez to serve two straight points thanks to a kill from junior middle blocker Miranda Martinez and a block from her and senior middle blocker Kaylin Cho.

The Dons would still trail until the first kill from sophomore middle blocker Peyton Hoyer put the hosts up 23-22, From there, six more ties would be generated, and the Gladiators would be at set point once until another kill from Hoyer and an ace from junior opposite hitter Leah Hidalgo gave Cerritos the advantage.

“It’s what competitive volleyball is,” said Cuthbert. “We made a few more errors in those sets and Gahr made a few less, and they felt pretty good about themselves, and they had a lot of momentum going. We looked a little sluggish and we had to work really hard to turn that third set around. That was huge for us.”

“There was a big energy switch,” said Merino. “As much as Gahr wanted it a lot, we wanted it a lot more, and we really showed it out there.”

By then, it appeared that Gahr was beginning to lose some of their momentum they had gained the previous two sets even though they had an 8-6 lead. But another serving error gave the Dons a chance to seal the match and they took advantage of it. First, Veron served 11 straight points as she had five more aces and Hoyer had three kills. Then after junior outside hitter Violet Hackworth served an ace, Cerritos reeled off five straight points off the serving of Gomez, the final two in the form of the team’s 27^th and 28^th ace.

“Her serving is super consistent; she always goes for it,” said Merino of Veron. “No matter what the score is, she’s still going to go for the serve and do a tough serve. I think that’s what we needed as we needed to push through the set.”

“I was very thankful for that run,” said Cuthbert. “I was very thankful to get a little bit of breathing space. Ally wants to be playing at her highest level all the time. I was so pleased for her to get that huge run which really blew that game wide open.”

Even though the Gladiators dropped the match, Dennis was still pleased to see her team rally from deficits of five and four points in the second set and stay within reach in the third set.

“We fell short in the third set, but the goal was to roll that energy over from the second to the third,” said Dennis. “There were big plays, but we fell short. It’s a little bit of luck and discipline, but this team is young, they’re developing and by the second round, we’ll be ready.

“We have a lot of things to work on; dialing in on our serve receive, dialing in on our serving and dialing in on our communication,” she later said. “We’ll be back better than ever.”

Hackworth led the Gladiators with 11 kills while junior setter Sykoya Molina and senior defensive specialist Raeana Sousa added nine and seven kills, respectively while Merino paced the Dons with 14 kills and eight aces while Veron had 13 kills and half a dozen aces.

“She’s the heartbeat of our team,” said Cuthbert of Merino. “She’s so excited; she loves the game, she loves our team, she loves her teammates and she’s really, really talented as well. Whenever we’re feeling a little sluggish, she brings that [energy] for us. We lean on her in big moments, and she makes plays for us.”

“In the past, we’ve only had one chance to really show them that we could win against [Gahr],” said Merino. “But now that we have them [in league], we can play them twice and really show them that we are winners.”

After winning all three of its pool play matches in the Bellflower-Gahr Volleyball Classic the next day, the Gladiators went 1-1 in the playoffs last Saturday to see their record go to 19-8. Gahr visited Warren High on Sept. 17 and will return home on Tuesday against Downey High to end the first round of league action. Cerritos (16-4) also swept through its pool play action in the same tournament before going 1-2 in the playoffs last Saturday. The Dons will host La Serna High on Tuesday to wrap up the first round of league action. The rematch will be on Sept. 29^th at Gahr.

“Oh, I’m sure it’s up there; I don’t know if my memory is good enough to totally say that this was number one,” said Cuthbert on the topic of his best win at Cerritos. “But it was a great day; really competitive, loud in the gym, close games [and] going to extra points.”

“This game is always so fun; just good energy on both sides of the bench,” said Dennis. “From Cerritos as well as us, this is a game that everyone wants to win. Everyone wants to watch ‘the Cerritos game’ they call it. So, we expected the high energy. We just fell short in the end. But we’ll get them in the second round.”