Volleyball: South Pas Rallies to Beat Monrovia

It took the girls’ volleyball team some time to get going.

In fact, it almost took too long when the Tigers hosted Monrovia in the Rio Hondo League opener Thursday.

But in the end, the Tigers proved to be the stronger side, winning 25-21, 17-25, 14-25, 25-23, 15-12.

“Finally we caught up,” first-year South Pasadena coach Ben Diaz said. “The fourth game was the turnaround game. I’ve got a lot of young kids on that team, and I told them you have to stay mentally tough.”

South Pasadena (8-2) got a big match from sophomore Claire Kieffer-Wright, who finished with 28 kills—five of which came in the fifth and final game. She also had a kill on the final point of the fourth game.

“We got points when we needed to come back,” Diaz said. “We had to stop messing up on little things like balls not dropping or getting the fourth ball over the net. They’re a very young team, but they’ll catch on.”

Monrovia (7-7) was two points away from clinching the match in the fourth game, but could not finish off the Tigers.

“I’m happy that we keep fighting until the last point,” Monrovia coach Wayne Teng said.

Teng was at the same time frustrated to not win.

“We put ourselves in a situation that we should not be in,” Teng added. “I’m happy about the effort because we are inexperienced. We tried to play some good defense and once we improve that hopefully we’ll do better.”

Monrovia hung with the Tigers in the first game until 19, when South Pasadena broke away to win 25-21.

The Tigers fell behind early in the second game before rallying to catch the Wildcats at 13. But they then went into a slump as Monrovia won 25-17.

The Wildcats continued to play well in the third game, as the Tigers were never close in a 25-14 win.

Sammy Figueroa had 12 kills and Sophia Hathaway had eight kills for South Pasadena. Jessica Arroyo had 25 assists for the Tigers.