Volleyball

During his beach volleyball heyday, Bernie Holtzman had the kind of fun in the sand that Frankie Avalon had on a surf board. Just as Frankie and Annette Funicello honed their skills in the 1965 movie "Beach Blanket Bingo," Holtzman honed his skills at Santa Monica and Will Rogers state beaches, playing doubles and full-team games on the dunes, during the 1940s. Holtzman, now 84, was known as one of the best beach volleyball players on the Southern Californian coast by the time he was in his late teens and early 20s. With longtime doubles partner Gene Selznick, who is credited with inventing the spike while competing with Holtzman against a slew of volleyball greats, Holtzman took first place in dozens of tournaments.

Host Arcadia blanked the Crescenta Valley girls' varsity volleyball team, 3-0, in a Pacific League match on Tuesday. The Falcons, who dropped to 8-2 overall and to 3-2 in league, lost 25-22, 25-14 and 25-20. In an earlier league contest last Friday, the Falcons beat visiting Hoover, 3-1. The Falcons won the first game, 25-7, lost the second game, 28-26, but won the next two games, 25-8 and 25-11, to take the match. Laura Boyd and Ashley Srebnack both contributed seven kills.

Head Coach John Nelson has a good feeling about the upcoming season of Crescenta Valley boys' volleyball. With returning seniors Mike Cho, a First Team All-Pacific League Outside Hitter, Michael Blong, Mazen Jahchan, also a All-League selection, Joe Cody and Wyatt Given, Nelson foresees a competitive year for the Falcons. "We are excited for the new season," said Nelson. "We're hoping to build on the experience we gained from last year." And how did the team fare last year in Pacific League play?

La Crescenta resident and Crescenta Valley High graduate Laura Boyd was one of five athletes who last week signed National Letters of Intent to play for the Stetson University volleyball team. "I'm excited about this group of players," said Cheryl Carlson who is the volleyball head coach at the DeLand, Fla. school. "I think that they have the potential to have a huge impact on our program. Not only are they all good volleyball players and hard workers, they are all excellent students as well."

Having a late summer sports craving? Well, look no further. The La Cañada Community Recreational Leagues youth volleyball camp is an instructional program for children ages 7 to 17 interested in having fun while improving their volleyball skills with help from professional counselors. The camp is run by Dana Spautz, director of the program that serves La Cañada, La Crescenta and Montrose, and is located in the Renaissance Academy gym, just a short drive for most La Cañada residents.

In the first game of Wednesday's league match between the Crescenta Valley Falcons' and the Hoover Tornadoes' volleyball teams, it looked like the teams would be battling it out for five games. With the score tied at 15, the less-experienced Tornadoes had a chance to steal the first game, but that was before the Falcons went on a 10-0 scoring run to close out the first game. The Falcons went on to win the match, posting a 25-15, 25,17, 24-26, 25-15 Pacific League road victory against rival Hoover.

The Crescenta Valley girls' varsity volleyball team's season came to an end on Tuesday as host Saugus blanked the locals, 3-0, in an upper bracket first round game in the CIF Southern Section Division I-A playoffs. Saugus, who took second in the Foothill League, swept the Falcons, who finished third in the Pacific League, 25-19, 25-8 and 25-22. CV ended the season 11-15 overall and 6-4 in league. The Centurions, who are ranked eighth in the CIF-SS Division I coaches' poll, improved to 21-7-1.

GLENDALE — For a pair of basketball players, earning All-CIF volleyball honors is certainly impressive. And when Rebels volleyball Coach Sean Beattie describes Edmund Chow and Kenyatta Smith, he doesn't hesitate to admit that it was on another court that they were familiar with when they began their days at Flintridge Prep. "Let's be honest, they don't touch a volleyball until volleyball season," said Beattie, whose team shared the Prep League title and advanced to the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division V playoffs.

LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE ? The Flintridge Prep girls' volleyball team is still searching for its first Prep League victory of the season. The Rebels never got into much of a groove, as they fell to Westridge, 25-18, 25-14, 25-19, Tuesday afternoon at Flintridge. "We didn't play anywhere near our potential, it's kind of disheartening," Rebels Coach Sean Beattie said. "You can't take anything away from Westridge, they are a solid team. There are no excuses." Westridge is more than a solid team.

Edmund Chow’s season on the hardwood begins in early winter and continues well into the spring. With the standard the Flintridge Prep boys’ volleyball team has set for deep CIF Southern Section Division V playoff runs in recent years, its often much closer to summer before Chow’s work in the gymnasium is done. Over his four years at Prep, Chow has risen to an All-CIF level basketball player as the school’s point guard, but he continues to entertain raucous crowds at big games in the school’s gym long after hoops season is over, having developed into one of the top volleyball players in the at Prep, as well.

LA CRESCENTA - An unlikely CIF Southern Section Division III playoff run that began with a come-from-behind victory over the 10th-seeded squad, followed by a win against the No. 7 team, came to a screeching halt Saturday evening for the Crescenta Valley boys' volleyball team. The unranked Falcons dropped their quarterfinal match against visiting No. 2 seed South Torrance, 25-15, 22-25, 25-18, 25-21. "Like I told my guys, they made a couple big plays that we didn't. We missed a couple.

LA CRESCENTA - First the Crescenta Valley High boys' volleyball team broke Cerritos' spirit with a decisive win in a pivotal third game. Then the host Falcons simply broke the match wide open with a fourth-game rout to claim a 25-19, 22-25, 25-14, 25-13 victory in a CIF Southern Section Division III second-round playoff game on Thursday night. "That was a blast, it was so much fun," said Falcons outside hitter Wesley Cormier, who finished with 10 kills and four blocks and had four kills and an ace in the final game, which Crescenta Valley led by as many as 15 points.

Faced with an intimidating No. 2 seed on the road in its playoff opener, the St. Francis High boys' volleyball team didn't get off to the best of starts Tuesday night. And even though the Golden Knights rebounded to give host Esperanza pause in the second game of their CIF Southern Section Division I opener, the Aztecs finished off the job with a 25-13, 25-19, 25-15 sweep. "I would say their reputation, first," Golden Knights Coach Mark Frazee said when asked what spooked his team.

NORTH HILLS - Just a game away from its season ending and roughly a decade removed from its last first-round playoff triumph, the Crescenta Valley High boys' volleyball team had quite the obstacle to overcome in a short period of time. In less than an hour, the Falcons turned a bleak situation into a positive one by rallying for a 22-25, 22-25, 25-20, 25-14, 15-12 CIF Southern Section Division III road win against L.A. Baptist on Tuesday night. In some respects, the Falcons (18-9)

There won't be much time for the four playoff-bound area boys' volleyball teams to prepare for their first-round matchups, which were revealed by the CIF Southern Section Saturday morning and will be played at 7 p.m. on Tuesday night. Two Pacific League teams, Burroughs and Crescenta Valley, will open play in Division III, while St. Francis faces an uphill climb in Division I and Providence will measure its progress against a team it faced earlier this year in Division V. Burroughs hasn't met up with its first-round foe, Village Christian, since last April at the Crescenta Valley Varsity Tournament.

PASADENA — Both the St. Francis High and Pasadena Poly boys' volleyball team are headed to the same place — the CIF Southern Section playoffs. But Wednesday's nonleague tuneup match between the teams showed the Golden Knights' engine to be running pretty smoothly, while the Panthers may yet need some tinkering under the hood, as their struggles down the stretch of the campaign persisted. St. Francis seemed to catch Poly in a daze in the first game and although the Panthers recovered to make stands in the subsequent stanzas, the Golden Knights were still able to complete the sweep, 25-16, 25-18, 25-21, in the regular-season finale for both teams.

LA CRESCENTA - When the Crescenta Valley and Arcadia high boys' volleyball teams meet, there's usually something at stake. In past years, they've battled for the Pacific League championship. Other times, they've fought solely for bragging rights. This year, the Falcons and Apaches contested for the third-place slot in league. CV's Vincent Van Hoek made sure that the Falcons secured third place. Van Hoek recorded 13 kills and eight assists to lead the Falcons to a 25-17, 25-21, 25-17 home victory against the Apaches.

NORTHWEST GLENDALE - With playoffs out of the question for both the Glendale and Hoover high boys' volleyball teams, the regular season finale between the cross-town and Pacific-League rivals was the biggest match of the season for both squads. The Tornadoes came out strong at home Tuesday and rolled to a first-game victory that Hoover co-Coach Chris Hong said boosted their confidence the rest of the way, as they narrowly avoided five games in a win over the Nitros, 25-8, 16-25, 25-23, 26-24.

LA CRESCENTA - There's a certain pressure a home team feels in hosting a tournament, especially one as successful as the Crescenta Valley High boys' volleyball tournament. After two days of competition, there was a general thumbs up from the Crescenta Valley camp, as the Falcons finished Saturday's final day of the tournament's two-day competition with an overall 3-2 record and a fifth-place showing in the tournament's elite Gold Division. "We're getting better," Falcons Coach John Nelson said at the conclusion of tournament.

LA CRESCENTA - Without even setting foot in the Crescenta Valley High gymnasium on Friday, the Village Christian boys' volleyball team turned Pool B of the 2012 Crescenta Valley Varsity Tournament on its ear. The Crusaders were unable to put off an Olympic League match that had been rescheduled for Friday and were therefore unable to take their place in Pool B alongside Paraclete, Salesian and the host Falcons. As a result, the remaining three were left to battle it out for first place and the berths in today's Gold Division playoffs awarded to the top two teams in each of the four pools.