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    Fryer: Troy volleyball enjoying this year’s success
    • April 24, 2025

    Welcome back to the boys volleyball playoffs, Troy High School.

    It was only six years ago that Troy was welcomed to the sport of boys volleyball.

    It seems impossible that a public school as large as Troy, which opened in Fullerton in 1965, a school that is in Orange County, a volleyball hotbed, started a boys volleyball program only six years ago.

    But it is true.

    Troy has won its first outright league championship in the sport. The Warriors beat Brea Olinda in four sets Tuesday to win the North Hills League championship with an 8-0 league record. They are 28-7 overall.

    Warriors coach Terry Lendeen launched the Troy boys volleyball program for the 2019-20 season. He has been its only coach.

    Other than the pandemic-interrupted school year of 2020-21, Troy qualified for the playoffs every season until last year when the Warriors finished 9-11 overall and 4-6 in the Freeway League. Releaguing placed Troy in the North Hills League this season.

    “We underperformed last year,” Lendeen said. “So I changed the way I coach. I was tougher on them last year. There is less substituting now and I let the kids feel their way through a match. The majority of the returning kids asked for that.”

    Senior middle blocker Isaac Fuentes is a three-year varsity player for Troy's boys volleyball team, which recently clinched the North Hills League championship. (Courtesy of Gildan Photography)
    Senior middle blocker Isaac Fuentes is a three-year varsity player for Troy’s boys volleyball team, which recently clinched the North Hills League championship. (Courtesy of Gildan Photography)

    Lendeen said this season’s team is led by senior middle blockers Isaac Fuentes and Jalen Williams. Both are three-year varsity players. Other top contributors include outside hitters Naren Penumarti, a junior, and senior Roman Perez and senior setter Jadon Wavita.

    Troy will be in Division 3 when the CIF-SS boys volleyball playoff brackets are released Friday afternoon. (The brackets originally were scheduled to be released Saturday, but the Southern Section office moved that up to Friday.) The Warriors advanced to the quarterfinals in Division 4 two years ago.

    Williams likes his team’s chances.

    “In all of my years in the Troy volleyball program, this is the best serve-receiving and best defensive team I’ve been on,” said Williams, who has a team-high 211 kills. “This team has been great. Our morale is always up. We persevere together through thick and thin.”

    NOTES

    •The CIF-SS is likely to select an eight-team group for Division 1 in the playoffs. The most recent CIF-SS rankings, provided by Massey Ratings, had these teams in the top eight in this order: Mira Costa, Huntington Beach, Loyola, Redondo, Corona del Mar, Beckman, San Clemente and Mater Dei. Mater Dei lost to St. John Bosco on Tuesday, it’s only Trinity League loss. It will be interesting to see if that loss drops Mater Dei out of the top eight, which could place the Monarchs in Division 2 – if Division 1 as in the past is an eight-team division. …

    •The number of CIF-SS boys volleyball playoff divisions has grown to nine divisions. Southern Section boys volleyball had seven playoff divisions last year. Most of the divisions will be 32-team brackets. The CIF-SS playoffs bulletin states that Division 1 will not be a 32-team bracket and that Division 2 might not be a 32-team bracket. …

    •It’s “The Ojai” weekend in boys tennis. The Ojai Tournament will be played for the 123rd year and as usual has plenty of top Orange County players. Among them are singles standouts Cayden Wang of Crean Lutheran, Rishvanth Krishna of University, Brayden Tallakson of Woodbridge, Matteo Huarte of Mater Dei and Jovan Pedroza of Los Alamitos, and the top two seeded doubles teams of No. 1 David Tran and Trevor Nguyen of Marina and No. 2 Caden Lee and Edwin Yuan of Beckman. …

    •Laguna Beach clinched the Pacific Coast League baseball championship with its 8-0 win over Portola on Wednesday as the Breakers improved to 20-3 overall and 10-1 in league. Laguna Beach baseball was in the Pacific Coast League from 1987 to 2006, then was in the Orange Coast League and the Wave League until releaguing placed the team into the PCL again this season. The latest CIF-SS baseball rankings have Laguna Beach at No. 28; the CIF-SS Division 1 playoffs bracket will be a 32-team bracket. …

    •Segerstrom baseball has continued to play varsity games since Coach Erasmo Ramirez and Principal David Casper were removed after the CIF-SS office found that the school’s baseball program violated CIF rules and banned the Jaguars from this year’s playoffs because of rule violations. Segerstrom defeated Estancia 6-5 on Wednesday. The school has not announced who is in charge of the program. Assistant coach George Jimenez represented Segerstrom at the pregame home-plate meeting with the Estancia coach and umpires Wednesday. …

    •Jonathan Antolin is the new boys basketball coach at Tustin. Antolin, 40, has been an assistant coach at Foothill for six seasons, the last two as an associate head coach on Yousof Etemadi’s coaching staff. Antolin replaces Ringo Bossenmeyer, who is taking an assistant coaching position at Chapman University after coaching Tustin with class and plenty of wins for 25 seasons. …

    •Orange Lutheran is close to announcing its new boys basketball coach. It’s going to be a current Orange County head coach that takes the job that became available when Daniel Dunbar resigned to create more family time. …

    Pat Eaton of Tesoro is the Orange County boys volleyball coach of the year for the 2023 season. (Photo courtesy of Pat Eaton)
    Pat Eaton of Tesoro is the Orange County boys volleyball coach of the year for the 2023 season. (Courtesy of Pat Eaton)

    •Newport Harbor hired Pat Eaton as its girls volleyball coach. He replaces Andrew Mabry, who left to become an assistant coach at Kansas State. Eaton has been the boys head coach at Tesoro, where he also was an assistant coach for girls volleyball. Eaton led Tesoro’s boys to a CIF-SS championship in 2022 and has coached the Balboa Bay Volleyball Club, so he is going to be very familiar with the Sailors. …

    •Ibrahim Atalla is the new wrestling coach at Servite. He replaces Alan Clinton, who had been the Friars’ head coach since 2007. Clinton will serve as a consultant and assistant coach for Servite. Atalla previously coached at Mayfair, where his teams won five CIF-SS championships. …

    •The first CIF State boys volleyball championships will be at Fresno City College on May 31. …

    •The CIF Los Angeles City Section has revoked Narbonne’s 2024 City Open Division football championship and has banned the Harbor City public school’s football program from competing in the playoffs for three seasons for violating CIF eligibility rules.

     Orange County Register 

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