When San Marino High and South Pasadena faced off in boys’ volleyball for the second time this season, a win for the Titans in the penultimate match of the Rio Hondo League campaign would give them the outright league title and a sweep of their rivals.
Needless to say, a lot was on the line.
South Pasadena forced a fifth game in the matchup and prevailed by, literally, the slimmest of margins for a 25-19, 23-25, 20-25, 25-16, 16-14 win on April 11, momentarily spoiling the Titans’ title celebrations and moving into a tie for first place in the league standings.
“South Pas is always good,” San Marino coach Tony Chou said. “They are always ready to scrap and get the ball back over the net, and that’s exactly what they did today. It could have gone either which way.”
It was a very different result than the first matchup, when San Marino hosted and swept South Pasadena on March 19.
“To be honest with you, I think the vibe [and] us seeing what our weaknesses were against them and bettering our defense,” said South Pasadena coach Ivy Chew of the difference between the two matches. “Yesterday’s practice, we were really focusing on how we need to defend against them. It definitely showed. Our first contact was definitely a lot better than we were last time. I think last time we made a lot more unforced errors on our end. I think this time around we were a lot more prepared to compete against them.”
For San Marino, ranked No. 4 in the CIF Southern Section Division V as of April 16, the loss to the Tigers was the Titans’ first league defeat and ended a 10-match win streak.
“Maybe we were getting too comfortable and we had too much confidence, so it’s good that we got this now,” Chou said. “Hopefully, we take care of business next week and then we start getting better for CIF.”
San Marino (20-6-1 overall, 6-1 in league as of April 15) can secure at least a share of the Rio Hondo League title with a road win against Monrovia in the season finale on April 18.
For South Pasadena, a win in the Tigers’ season finale April 16 at Temple City would seal the league title.
San Marino started off game five by scoring the first three points, only to see the hosts score the next three. The game was tied at every point from three to eight before the Tigers pulled out to a 13-9 advantage.
The Titans went on a 4-0 run, starting with a kill on a tip shot from Casey Chan and Ryan Wang, a Tiger hitting error and another kill from the outside by Chan to knot the game at 13-13. However, the next point went to the hosts following a bad pass by San Marino, bringing up match point.
Titan Luca Moggio made a block to tie the score again, but Tiger junior James Dowd finished things after that with back-to-back kills in the middle for the win. Dowd led the hosts with 21 kills.
Chan led the Titans on the attack with 28 kills and accounted for seven of his team’s 14 points with kills in game five. Ryan Wang tallied 12 kills, with Moggio joining the senior in double digits with 11. Sophomore Hunter Piccinini had four kills, while Jeffery Li and setter Jared Wang each had three apiece.
“Just a few simple mistakes that we did sometimes,” Ryan Wang said. “It was just the little stuff — that is how we lost. But I think we all played our best.”
In game one, San Marino led early before South Pasadena took over. The Tigers went on a 4-0 run late, culminating in consecutive aces by Ryan Estanislao, to bring up game point at 24-18. The Tigers hit long after that, but finished it off on the next point via a kill by Dowd.
In game two, the Titans fired up late. The game was tied deep into the set with the teams knotted at 21-21 before San Marino scored the next three points starting with an ace by Ryan Lee. The hosts survived two game points before Chan finished it off with an emphatic kill from the outside on the right for the 25-23 win.
San Marino also won game three, with the Titan lead peaking at 22-16 after back-to-back kills from the outside by Chan and Ryan Wang. Chan had a kill for game point, attacking from the backline and landing the ball deep on the Tigers’ side of the court.
Game four was tied as late as 13-13 before South Pasadena pulled away. The hosts’ final margin of nine was the biggest of the game that forced the decisive fifth game.
“There are things we didn’t bring from our last time around,” Chou said. “Serving was a big part of it. I think it starts with serve and serve receive. We’ve got good net players, but it came down to that.”
First published in the April 18 issue of the San Marino Tribune
