La Mirada sweeps Bellflower, 3-0, in Suburban League matchup
La Mirada’s Alyssa Meraz (20) and Brooke Gonzalez (11) leap to block a hit as they play Bellflower in their Suburban League game at Bellflower High School on Tuesday. La Mirada defeated Bellflower 3-0. (Photo by Keith Durflinger)
BELLFLOWER – After starting the season with 11 consecutive losses, the La Mirada High School girls volleyball team has turned things around and have won eight of the last 13 matches and are 3-1 in the Suburban League.
The Matadores, who are 8-16 overall, defeated host Bellflower (1-17, 0-4) Tuesday, 3-0, to remain in the hunt for first place in league.
La Mirada swept the Buccaneers, 25-22, 25-13, 25-20, in the three sets.
Mayfair, with an 11-5 overall record, remains atop the league with a 4-0 record, followed by La Mirada (3-1), Norwalk (1-3) and Bellflower (0-4).
Junior middle blocker Milan Nimeh (4 digs) and sophomore opposite Alyssa Meraz led the team with five kills each, while senior outside hitter Layla Monteon had four kills.
Senior middle blocker Brooke Gonzalez and junior outside hitter Bailey Mahan (5 digs) had three kills each.
La Mirada Junior setter Alyssa Romero and senior setter Kaelyn Corns had 12 and nine assists, respectively.
Matadores libero Zayetzi Diaz led the team with 13 digs and Monteon had eight.
“It’s been tough (in the beginning),” first-year La Mirada coach Kim Mahan said. “It’s been tough on the girls and you feel defeated. We started late and we don’t have our gym.
“We only had three or four weeks to practice. We are all walk-on coaches and got started late. In the Kennedy Tournament we won three games in a row. I think just really practicing helped us. We were struggling a lot with our passing and then improved.”
Mahan, who is a 1999 La Mirada graduate and has been a lower division coach for 14 years, was named coach in July, replacing longtime coach Linda Reich.
Reich won three league titles for the Matadores.
“We always say we are a second-set team, because we always start slow and I don’t know what it is,” added Kim Mahan. “It takes a while for the energy and the chemistry to get going.
“They (Bellflower) are a very scrappy team and they do not give up at all.”
La Mirada’s Bailey Mahan (5) hits a shot over Bellflower defenders in their Suburban League game at Bellflower High School on Tuesday. La Mirada defeated Bellflower 3-0. (Photo by Keith Durflinger)
Kim Mahan, who was the freshman coach last year, is now with her longtime friend and last year’s JV coach, Jennifer Patterson. She is now on varsity as an assistant coach.
“It’s really wonderful to work with someone when we have both been in the program for so long,” said Patterson, who is in her 17th year in the program and played with Mahan’s sister April on the La Mirada volleyball team. “We know each other’s thinking and know exactly what to do and have the same routine we’ve had for years.
“It’s amazing to mesh with somebody (Mahan) already and then come up to varsity.”
In the match, La Mirada briefly led in the first set, 4-3, but the Buccaneers led by as much as five points, 18-13, later in the set.
The comeback by La Mirada then began with a couple of Bellflower errors and a kill by Nimeh and later a kill by Romero and Gonzalez to trail by a point, 20-19.
The highlight of the set, however, was a diving play on a long rally by senior libero Zayetsi Diaz.
“We were all over the place and I saw the ball right in the middle and I knew that I had to get it,” Diaz remembered. “I just went for it. It felt really good to get that ball and pop it up.”
Diaz also said the team wasn’t focused early in the first set.
“I think we weren’t really focusing in the first set,” she said. “We beat (Bellflower) last time and I think we thought, ‘Oh, we beat them before.’
“We just needed to calm down and get down to the basics.”
They got down to the basics and after a Diaz service ace to lead for the first time since early in the set, 22-21, La Mirada won three out of the last four points for the set-one win.
Nimeh, who had two kills in the first set, gave the Matadores set-point with a tip-over for the 24-22 lead and Bellflower hit the ball out for the last point.
The second set was pretty much all La Mirada, except for a stretch that saw Bellflower win four points in a row from a 12-3 deficit to 13-7.
In that stretch, junior middle Abie Van Nerynen went down with what appeared to be a serious ankle injury.
Just 10 points later with the Matadores building up an 18-10 lead, a second similar injury occurred to senior opposite Mia Rodriguez.
“I think that really rattled us as a team because they are two of our main players,” Nimeh said. “Hopefully, they get back soon and we’re just going to work through it without them.”
Monteon added, “The two injuries took a toll on us during the game and we were out of rotation, and seeing them on the side and we’re still out here playing. That hurt.
“After we started scoring and we forgot what just happened, we got back into the game again.”
Kim Mahan also said of the injuries: “I’ve never seen two players get hurt that close together.”
The Matadores finished the second set on a roll, outscoring Bellflower, 7-2, for the win.
Highlighting the run was a service ace by junior outside hitter Mikayla Gonzalez and a kill to end the set by Meraz.
In the third and final set, Bellflower had a comfortable lead, 11-5, after a five-point run on points.
The Matadores began their comeback, highlighted by a kill from Brooke Gonzalez and a service ace by Diaz to tie the game at 12-12.
Nimeh was serving (5 consecutive points) when La Mirada took the lead for good, 16-15, and never looked back, outscoring Bellflower, 9-5, to end the match.
Nimeh had a tip-over for the win.
“We just have a team that doesn’t have a lot of experience,” said Bellflower Volleyball coach Henry Chen, who has been the head coach since 2009. “We run a system that is more complex than most teams and it requires a lot of communication and ball control. But we’re getting there.
“We know that it’s going to be a battle with La Mirada and they’ve improved a lot too. They are well coached and we’ve always been battling them every year. We’re rivals with everybody. It’s a small league.
“We made a lot of unforced errors. We missed serves and easy swings. But, that’s part of learning. La Mirada is a very solid program. They’re going to capitalize.
“It’s awesome to coach in a normal season. I’m just happy for the kids.”
La Mirada is made up of players from softball, soccer, track, water polo and swimming.
La Mirada, which has four games remaining in the regular season, has two games left with first-place Mayfair and one game with Norwalk and Bellflower.
What they said:
Bailey Mahan, junior outside hitter: “I’ve danced for nine years and I’m always on my toes and move a lot. We always kind of start off (slow), which I don’t know why we do that. We always come back and need to work on that. In the first tournament, that’s where we started doing a lot better. From there, we just improved a lot. It feels good to be winning.”
Milan Nimeh, junior middle blocker: “I think from us not playing for two years because of Covid and everything, that set everyone back. I knew that we had something when we started, but it just took a while to get it out of everyone. I feel like, now on the court, we have more chemistry as a team and we understand each other. That’s been a big difference.”
Layla Monteon, senior opposite: “(Losing) was scary in the beginning since we’re all athletes from different sports. I play softball. They (Nimeh and Mahan) play soccer. I think in the beginning we all knew where we could go with us being athletic, but it was just hard getting to this point, starting to come together.
“Our first tournament (Kennedy High), we spent the whole day together and that helped. We play super slow in our first game.”