GATEWAY LEAGUE GIRLS VOLLEYBALL: Cerritos completes season-series sweep against Gahr, moves closer to league title

October 1, 2026

By Loren Kopff
@LorenKopff on X

Cerritos High’s David Cuthbert won’t talk about winning league titles that much, especially when a season isn’t completely done. Afterall, the Dons finished off a nearly flawless seven-year stint in the former 605 League, winning 68 of 70 league matches heading into this season.

This past Tuesday, the 13-year head coach was looking to see if his squad can take another step in capturing first place in the revised Gateway League as Cerritos visited city rival Gahr High. On Sept. 10, the Dons broke a 1-1 tie by winning the next two sets in the opening match of the league. This time around, the black and gold lost a pair of set points in the beginning before losing, but bounced back to defeat the Gladiators 24-26, 25-16, 25-16, 25-10.

“I know [this match] had its moments,” said Cuthbert. “In the first match, we had two sets decided by two points, including the 30-28 [third set]. But for sure, it’s always like that whenever we play each other; it’s going to be an intense game.”

The first set did not disappoint in the level of intensity as there were 15 ties and five lead changes as neither team led by more than three points at any time. Gahr gained an early 6-3 advantage as sophomore libero Kylee Shaver served four straight points. The Gladiators (20-9 overall, 3-2 in league) held the lead until senior outside hitter Ceana Merino began the second serving rotation with three straight points, two of which came off two of her three aces in the set.

After trailing 17-14 and 18-15 moments after the aces from Merino, the Dons took the lead again as junior libero Chloe Gomez served three straight aces, then Merino had an ace followed by a kill from junior outside hitter Ally Veron for a 24-21 lead. But Gahr junior setter Sykoya Molina had a kill, then served the remainder of the set as she had her second and third ace of the set and junior outside hitter Violet Hackworth had her fourth and fifth kills to that point.

“We talked about it afterwards; they were waiting for the set to be over instead of making a really proactive play [to] go after winning it,” said Cuthbert of his team. “That’s what we talked about; we feel we should have won that set. But Gahr did a great job coming back. But it gave us a lot of confidence going into the rest of the game knowing that we were pretty subpar and still should have won that set.”

Junior setter Kylie Cruz began the second set with four straight aces, and the Dons would not relinquish the lead the remainder of the set as the Gladiators could not put together more than three straight points at any time. Merino amped up her game with half a dozen kills in the set and Cerritos (21-3, 5-0) had 10 more aces.

It was more of the same in the third set as Merino added two more aces and a kill as Cerritos gained an early 4-1 advantage. But Hackworth’s 10th kill tied the score at 4-4 before Veron’s kill helped freshman outside hitter Tara Namiranian serve six straight points as she added three straight kills to her total while the lone freshman on the team had a pair of aces. Namiranian ended the set with three straight points including another ace.

“Every time [Tara] served, we picked up points,” said Cuthbert. “As a freshman, she’s one of our best servers. I’ll tell you what, as a former player who played a lot of that role, it is a high-pressure situation to come in and just serve because you miss a service, it’s a bad set. If you have a good serve, you had a good set, and it’s not like another player; you get multiple opportunities.”

Despite the four-set loss, Gahr had three more kills (43-40) and was led by Hackworth’s 17. Molina was next on her team with nine kills while Shaver had five of her team’s 14 aces. Senior right side hitter Raeana Sousa and freshman outside hitter Kenzie Vikchai each added five kills. Merino led the Dons with 10 kills and seven aces while senior middle blocker Kaylin Cho, who is not a fulltime starter, junior opposite hitter Leah Hidalgo and sophomore middle blocker Peyton Hoyer all had six kills. Junior middle blocker Miranda Martinez led the team with four and a half blocks, followed by three from Veron, two from Hoyer and a half from Cho.

“This is a nice thing, and also a stressful thing for me as a coach because I don’t know who is going to show up today; who’s going to be the player who’s going to give us a spark,” said Cuthbert. “Kaylin is such an exceptional blocker and when she makes good decisions, she’s hard to stop because she has a really high contact.”

Both teams have a pair of road matches and one at home before the CIF-Southern Section playoffs begin. Gahr went to La Serna High on Oct. 1 and will entertain Warren High on Tuesday before going to Downey High on Thursday in its regular season finale while Cerritos went to Warren on Oct. 1 and will travel to La Serna on Thursday.

Cerritos has now won 11 of the last 15 meetings against the Gladiators and are on the verge of the program’s 16th league championship.

“Nothing is done until we play all our games,” said Cuthbert. “I know what everyone’s records are and I know what we need to do. But we’re just taking it a game at a time, and our goal is not to clinch; our goal is to go through this league and get as many wins as we can and to be playing as well as we can when we get to the playoffs.”