East Valley girls volleyball rallies to beat North Hollywood in City semifinals

NORTH HOLLYWOOD — East Valley’s girls volleyball team stunned its first-year head coach Bryan Ronsayro, but he couldn’t be happier.

The Falcons made a remarkable comeback in the fifth set to take down visiting North Hollywood, which, at the time, seemed to have all of the momentum in the gym.

With a trip to the CIF LA City finals on the line, East Valley won the Division II semifinal, 20-25, 25-16, 25-19, 24-26, 15-11, on Wednesday night.

The Falcons (13-6) closed out the game with a 12-3 run after trailing 8-3 in the fifth set.

East Valley will take on Mendez or Maywood CES in the final on Saturday at 3:15 p.m. at Birmingham High School.

“That was the craziest match I’ve ever coached,” Ronsayro said.

He said he tried to keep his team calm and confident during the most stressful moments of the contest.

“When I’m in the huddle, it’s more just like instilling confidence in the team,” said, “letting them know, ‘Hey, I’ve seen you guys come back from this before. We can do it right now.’”

East Valley began its comeback with a 6-0 run fueled by strong serving from junior Medha Paidimarri. The junior didn’t have aces in the run, but she kept North Hollywood (13-10) out of system with her tough floater.

The Falcons also got boosts from outside hitters Margaux Lane and Lily Kelsay, who each had a pair of kills in the final set. Kelsay led all players with 16 kills and Lane finished with 15.

Lane caught fire early in the fourth set. She had six kills in the set, but some hitting errors late in the game gave the Huskies the set.

Lane, a sophomore, bounced back right away and came up clutch with her big swing.

Kelsay also served during a big run in the win. The junior outside led a 7-0 run in set two to go up 8-1, resetting the tone of a night that started with a sloppy first set.

“I think we came into it a little timid, but once we saw their strategy and their game plan, we went into the second set knowing how to break it down,“ Ronsayro said. “The girls capitalized on staying aggressive, not being timid, but going in there with a very tough mindset of, hey, go in there to win.”

East Valley got into rhythm in sets two and three while North Hollywood stumbled. However, even down as much as 10 in both games, the Huskies found ways to get back into striking distance.

The Huskies had a great start and a scrappy fourth but just fell short of returning to the City title match for the first time in three years.

Olivia Reed and Viviene Behrens led North Hollywood with 11 kills apiece. Behrens’ big bounce and high swing helped the offense but she also made an impact on defense with one block and a ton of soft contact at the net. Middle blocker Valeria Samano led all players with three blocks.

Huskies libero Devon Kim gave the Falcons’ serve-receive the most trouble with multiple long serving runs and seven aces.

The win puts East Valley in the City finals for the first time since 2016.

The championship wasn’t on Ronsayro’s radar early in the season, as he took over the team just days before its first match. However, Wednesday night gave the team, and perhaps the program, a turning point.

“It’s my first year coaching the program, so when I saw I had a very young team, I could see that this program can definitely grow and be a solid squad,” Ronsayro said. “We’ve got a big future coming ahead of us. I let them know, that our goal is not just D2, our goal is to someday go into D1 or even Open division.

“The program started in D4 and hopefully we’ll just build that up a little bit more with structure. It’s going to take time, but I can definitely see it happening.”