Cleveland girls volleyball defeats Taft to win historic West Valley League title

RESEDA  — Cleveland senior setter and outside hitter Jenna Weiss, outside hitter AnaJoleen Bell, junior outside hitter Cate Freedman, senior setter Eva Hanley and sophomore Alyssa Lozano kept moving, diving and sliding.

Each players’ knee pads, which were once white, were now black from digging and chasing balls as a collective and refusing to let the ball hit the floor.

No player on Cleveland’s roster is taller than 6-foot.

“We bounce back quickly,” Freedman said.

Shot placement and selection took the place of power, and Cleveland with its scrappy core refused to yield against a Taft program whose height and length seemed capable of derailing the historic undertaking attempted on Monday night.

Weiss, Bell and Freedman each took turns firing shots and forced Taft into a scrambled frenzy in the back row as Cleveland swept its rival, 26-25, 25-11, 25-18, to capture the West Valley League title outright for the first time since at least 2004, which is as far back as the school has kept online team records.

Cleveland (30-11, 10-0 West Valley League) never stopped believing in itself after starting this season 1-5. It is now guaranteed a top-four spot throughout the CIF LA City Section playoffs.

“Those challenges made us who we are,” Weiss said. “It gave us grit, it gave us a chip on our shoulder. We are a team that always keeps going, always keeps scrapping, and I’m so proud of them.”

Winning the West Valley League is a reversal from the first experience Weiss had entering her first varsity game as a freshman. She remembered hearing negative chants, the gossip, the banter and the negativity surrounding a program that finished 21-23-1 overall and 3-7 in West Valley League play in 2023 during head coach Alex Barr’s first year.

Before Barr’s arrival, Cleveland went four years without a winning record.

She never forgot those losses.

“I remember we’d go into gyms and we’d hear ‘start the busses’ and they’d bring brooms,” Weiss said. “They’d be like who are these people? Let’s just run us over and put all our subs in and put all our bench in. I’m just so grateful to be here and to be on top.”

Weiss never left the game Monday, playing a multitude of roles as outside hitter and setter. She accumulated eight kills and also assisted Bell and Freedman in forcing Taft out of rotation. Freedman had nine kills and Bell added eight kills.

There’s no one star being fed to drive the ball over the side of the net.

“At the beginning of the season we came in and we all thought we were there,” Bell said. “We thought we were underestimated and going into the season we weren’t going to be underestimated. We were going to show what we could do on the court.”

Barr took a deep breath and put his hands over his face as cheers of “C House” echoed across the gymnasium.

“We just, hey, we are going to get a little better every year,” Barr said. “(We were) 3-7 year one, 6-4 year two, 7-3 year three and now 10-0 year four … feels really good. These girls worked really hard. They bought into everything we are doing, no matter how silly, ridiculous or intense. The things we were doing from day one, they bought in and I’m happy they are getting the recognition they deserve.”

Junior outside hitter Mayli Hernandez led Taft (31-8, 8-2 West Valley League) with 10 kills.

Taft coach Arman Mercado believes his team can learn from watching film against Cleveland and learn how the Cavaliers built inner resilience as a back row.

“Big credit to Cleveland and coach Barr,” Mercado said. “They play the right way and even when they’re down, they stay steady and play the right way. That’s something we have to learn when things aren’t going well is staying together and playing together.”

Mercado is also aware how matches in the playoffs can often change as well.

“My job is to get them ready and lucky I have enough experience to know how playoff games are played,” Mercado said. “I just got to show some of that film. Sometimes we are going to be down 0-2 or 2-1 and we just got to play through it. But luckily I have film from last year, two years ago when we won it and there’s lots of learning out there.”