When the Edison girls\u2019 beach volleyball team saw where they landed in the draw, the Chargers understood there was an opportunity in front of them that hadn\u2019t been there before.<\/p>\n
The CIF Southern Section put on its first beach volleyball championships in 2023, and in the first three years, Edison always found itself with a steep hill to climb in Division 1.<\/p>\n
As the top seed in Division 2, the idea was that things could be different. The Chargers could make a run and enjoy the playoff success that had eluded them.<\/p>\n
Edison made it through to the final, falling to Torrance Bishop Montgomery, 3-2, on Saturday at Long Beach City College. The Chargers became the first team from the Sunset League and one of five Orange County programs in the brief CIF history of the sport to reach a section final.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was amazing,\u201d Edison coach Valinda Roche said. \u201cIn all the years that I\u2019ve been coaching, we\u2019ve always finished in Division 1, and then we ran into [No. 1 seed Manhattan Beach] Mira Costa [twice]. We\u2019ll get two rounds, so this was really an opportunity to get all the way through. \u2026 It\u2019s actually great for our program to have a finish like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
During its playoff run, Edison (12-4) earned victories over Capistrano Valley Christian, Ventura and Laguna Beach.<\/p>\n
The Chargers held leads after the first set in three of the five matches \u2014 played side by side in a stadium setting.<\/p>\n
Lexi Braunstein and Lorin McCown pulled out a 21-17, 21-17 win, the only straight-sets victory for the Chargers. Different from the beach, which among other things may have provided more wind to contend with, the venue also allowed the players to track the progress of adjacent matches.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very stressful, looking over at my teammates\u2019 scores and seeing if they were winning or losing,\u201d said Braunstein, a senior who also played outside hitter for Edison\u2019s indoor program. \u201cI think it was really good that we stuck it out and won.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Braunstein and McCown closed out their match, the Chargers were trailing, 2-1, left with no margin for error to stay in title contention. The teams ran over to Court 5, where a third set had already gotten underway.<\/p>\n
Knights sophomore twins Alyssa and Hailey Waters edged Sidney Kershaw and Emery Oakes, 13-21, 21-17, 15-12, clinching the match and the first CIF title for Bishop Montgomery (14-1), who rushed the court to celebrate.<\/p>\n
Taylor McPherson and Gwen Willmer were part of the last match on court, when McPherson got sick during the third set. After being attended to at the back of the court, she stayed in the match, the Chargers\u2019 all-sophomore pairing prevailing 21-9, 21-23, 15-11.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know this girl so well,\u201d Willmer said while standing alongside her doubles partner. \u201cThis girl\u2019s like my little twin. We\u2019re like, literally, peas in a pod. Once I saw her battling her physical [ailment] out, I was like, \u2018That\u2019s OK,\u2019 like, I know she wants to win. If we\u2019re here, we\u2019re in the third, we\u2019re at CIF, she\u2019s going to play. We\u2019re going to win.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just knew that as long as I\u2019m positive and I\u2019m cheering her on and giving her what I can, I knew that as a team together, we\u2019re able to work that and apply that to our game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about the toughness exhibited by McPherson to remain in the fight, Roche said players remember matches as their careers go on.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of these girls are college bound,\u201d Roche said. \u201cThey have it, really, in them to compete no matter what, win or lose. It\u2019s a lot of pride to win your own game. \u2026 Down the road, the girls across the net are girls you\u2019re going to play in the future, so they always remember, \u2018Oh, we won that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
McPherson said she fed off the stadium setup, saying she liked playing in front of a crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely is a lot different,\u201d McPherson said. \u201cI honestly like when people watch me. I like it because it pushes me to do better. The pressure is really, like, \u2018I got to do this,\u2019 so honestly, I like that. Being able to hear all the other courts and everything, just the environment\u2019s really good. Definitely, the sand\u2019s different than actually playing on the beach.\u201d<\/p>\n
CIF Southern Section Division 2 final<\/p>\n
Bishop Montgomery 3, Edison 2<\/p>\n
Stacy Balestrieri \/ Stephanie Balestrieri (BM) def. Kendyl Clem \/ Kaelin Lagarde (E), 21-9, 21-11.<\/p>\n
Gwen Willmer \/ Taylor McPherson (E) def. Haley Spak \/ Lynn Choe (BM), 21-9, 21-23, 15-11.<\/p>\n
Lorin McCown \/ Lexi Braunstein (E) def. Odessa Yarnevic \/ Irene Choe (BM), 21-17, 21-17.<\/p>\n
Kendall McKechnie \/ Carli Duda (BM) def. Sydney Jensen \/ Zoie Millichap (E), 21-14, 21-13.<\/p>\n
Alyssa Waters \/ Hailey Waters (BM) def. Sidney Kershaw \/ Emery Oakes (E), 13-21, 21-17, 15-12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Edison girls\u2019 beach volleyball team saw where they landed in the draw, the Chargers understood there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[21866,9447,126158,1535,3622,21172,126156,23338,126161,10,126159,131,133,132,126160,1741,22169,126157],"class_list":["post-297709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-beach-volleyball","tag-bishop-montgomery","tag-bm","tag-chargers","tag-court","tag-division","tag-edison-girl","tag-first-team","tag-gwen-willmer","tag-laguna-beach","tag-lexi-braunstein","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-lorin-mccown","tag-lot","tag-match","tag-taylor-mcpherson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}