VALLEY GLEN — North Hollywood boys volleyball looked minutes away from a straight-set loss.
The Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences put the beatdown on the Huskies early in Thursday’s CIF LA City Section Division I quarterfinal match, but in the midst of a wild third set, North Hollywood found life.
The Huskies came back to reverse sweep the Vipers in a thrilling playoff battle at Grant High School.
North Hollywood won the match 20-25, 11-25, 25-23, 25-23, 15-12 behind strong defense and serving that came alive in the later sets.
“I’m just really proud of my boys,” Huskies coach Denise Daniel said. “I think that it’s something that speaks to them. We’ve always talked about playing together and keeping together, and it doesn’t matter what happened on the last point. It’s always looking forward to the next point. And I think we really show that at the end.”
The Huskies (23-8) were routed in the second set while everything was clicking for the Vipers (11-5). VAAS had 14 kills and an ace in the second set, when the Vipers could seemingly do no wrong.
North Hollywood shook it off and answered the call, winning a tight third set that featured 11 ties. The Huskies added three blocks in the set and finally had some momentum on the day.
VAAS cut down an 18-14 deficit in the fourth set, but North Hollywood held on and forced a fifth set thanks to a set-point kill from Huskies outside hitter Woojin Choi.
North Hollywood opposite hitter Iaroslav Shafigullin caught fire late in the fifth set, adding one block and three kills, including the match-point kill that sent the Huskies back to the CIF City semifinals.
Middle blocker Chai McGilmer led the Huskies with 14 kills and four blocks.
“It’s a really special group of boys that we have,” Daniel said. “We were really lucky that last year, we only we lost three seniors. This year we have four, so we’re really lucky to have that opportunity to build with the same group.”
For VAAS, this was supposed to be a down year after the reigning CIF champs graduated 13 seniors, including a handful of collegiate-bound players.
However, the Vipers turned plenty of heads this season, winning the Valley League for the fourth straight year and winning their 10th playoff match since 2022.
Miguel Mora led VAAS with 25 kills. Mora poured in kills early with seven in each of the first two sets, but was slowed down by the big North Hollywood block to close out the night.
Ryan Kim also added 17 kills for VAAS and had an ace for set point in the second game.
North Hollywood entered the night coming off an opening-round win over El Camino Real, earning the program its first playoff win in eight years. Now, the Huskies are headed to the City semifinals, where they will take on the top-seeded Taft Toreadors.
North Hollywood heads to Taft to fight for a spot in the City title match.
“One game at a time, always,” Daniel said. “One point at a time.”