Changes abound for local squads

Some of the seven area teams will have a new coach and participate in a new division in the upcoming season.

September 09, 2010|By Gabriel Rizk, gabriel.rizk@latimes.com

GLENDALE — This season won't be without some changes for the seven area girls' volleyball programs.

Crescenta Valley High, Glendale and Hoover have moved down a division in CIF, Glendale Adventist Academy will call a new league home and Flintridge Prep is moving up in division as it finds itself in the somewhat unfamiliar, but entirely welcome, scenario of looking to build on a playoff season.

And, there's been some transition on the sidelines, as well, with three programs making offseason coaching changes.

Holy Family is returning Robert Bringas, who was successful in his last stint with the Gaels, Anne Arlie replaces Shelli Orlandini at Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy and Steven Uememoto begins a new era for the Falcons, who bid farewell to the area's longest-tenured coach, 13-year veteran Jennifer Kunz Ryan.

Arlie, who has been a varsity assistant and lower-level coach at Sacred Heart for the past five years, inherits the area's most highly-regarded program, one which made two CIF semifinals appearances and one trip to the CIF finals during Orlandini's five years at the helm.

Most recently, the team advanced to the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division 1-AA playoffs.

Senior outside hitter Camille Coffey, a four-year starter, is the clearest remaining link to those past teams and will be the main weapon in the Tologs' arsenal as they first aim to navigate the Mission League, where nemesis Harvard-Westlake has been dominant for the last two seasons.

"It's always fun to watch Camille play," Arlie said.

Arlie's first order of business will be to sort out the Tologs' best lineup from a group of returners such as setter Alessandra Orlandini and a crop of varsity newcomers.

"I'm very excited about it," Arlie said of her first season as a varsity head coach. "I think we're going to surprise a lot of people. I know the attitude within the team is very good and that, mixed with a high skill level, is just going to make us even better.

"I think we're going to have a really good year. I think we'll be a force to be reckoned with."

Uememoto also comes from an assistant coaching background within CV and will rely on some of the same players that Kunz Ryan did in the team's 2009 season, which ended in the first round of the Division 2-AA postseason.

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