SPORTS
By Mitch Lehman

They huffed, and they puffed, but at the end of four scintillating CIF Division IV second round playoff games, the diminutive San Marino Titan volleyball team couldn’t blow down the Knights of Bishop Montgomery Tuesday night in raucous Dingus Memorial Fieldhouse.
“They were tough,” said outgoing head Coach Scott Cameron. “We got a game up on them but they just kept coming. We probably played as good as we could play. You can’t ask for any more than that.”
Using the wicked serving of senior setter Christian Yang and outside hitter Leo Zhu, the Titans squealed their tires in forging a 5-1 lead.
Key blocks by Yang and middle blocker Peter Chiang, also a senior, left the Knights shaking their collective heads as San Marino won the first game 25-17.
But Bishop Montgomery was anything but finished. Left-handed opposite hitter James Dutton dealt four straight aces during a key stretch of game two and the Knights prevailed 25-18.
The Titans stayed close in the opening half of the final two games, but Bishop followed a familiar formula in surging to the finish line in games three and four, claiming the match with 25-17 and 25-18 wins.
Senior Brandon Brown wowed the crowd with ten high-flying kills as he closed out a brilliant career. Chiang also carded 10 kills to go with three solo blocks. Sean Su chipped in with 4 kills, Zhu was credited with 3 and senior middle blocker Thomas Chou had three blocks.
“I thought Peter [Chiang] really got better and better during the season,” Cameron said. “He really rose to the occasion down the stretch. He hit some balls straight down.”
The coach, who actually founded San Marino’s volleyball program more than three decades ago, also had high praise for Brown, who is listed at 5’8” and possesses a 36”+ vertical leap.
“Some of the balls he hit, I was wondering ‘how did he do that?’” Cameron said. “He just kept going up and up.”
Cameron also cited Yang for excellent setting and libero Matt Louie for yeoman defensive play.
An interesting sidelight to the contest was the presence of 1988 San Marino High school graduate Kevin Norman – who appeared on the bench as the Knights’ head coach.
Cameron mentored his rival coach to an all-Rio Hondo League first team season in ‘88 when Norman racked up 195 kills and 36 service aces while hitting .360 – huge numbers in any decade.
San Marino qualified for the contest against Bishop by defeating Bolsa Grande last Friday night in straight sets by scores of 25-16, 25-19 and 25-18.
Zhu set the pace in game one when he served for an incredible eleven straight points to take the Titans from a 15-11 deficit to a 22-15 advantage.
Once again, it was Yang to Chiang and the result was usually ‘bang.’ Brown, Su and Chou also had hot offensive hands for San Marino.
As the Titans bow out with an overall record of 17-8, Cameron looked back on the experience with fond memories.
“I thought at the beginning of the season that if we could get to the playoffs we were overachieving,” Cameron said. “The league was very good. When we finished second I was very surprised and it was a tremendous achievement on the part of the players.”
Cameron originally retired from coaching in May of 2000. Most recently, Scott Mooney accepted the job of coaching both the boys’ and girls’ volleyball teams before taking a one-year sabbatical to teach English in Viet Nam. Cameron was asked to pick up his rusty whistle for one more year and surprised many when he returned to the bench in September.
He’s done now and recently announced his retirement from teaching Physics as well.
“It was a surprise and a unique set of circumstances that I came back I thought it was going to be a lot of work for an old man,” Cameron quipped. “It was a lot of fun. The kids were great, they couldn’t have been better. I tried not to change things too much and it worked out OK. I will say it made me feel a lot younger, but that being said, my arm hurts and I can’t walk.”