Taft girls are led by a killer combination
Julia Bazylevych and Prior Borick will acknowledge, with a laugh, that there are times they want to kill each other.
Sure, the Woodland Hills Taft seniors, two of the best volleyball players in the City Section, have been friends since middle school. But they’re also extremely competitive. During the spring, they paired up to play beach volleyball for Taft and did their fair share of bickering.
There’s a method to the madness. The two walked away winners of the first City Section beach pairs championship, and they aren’t holding back in a senior season with huge aspirations for a loaded Taft team.
“Even tonight, it looks like we’re arguing,” Borick said after Saturday’s City Champions showcase, “but we’re just trying to push through it.”
They did so with little resistance at that tournament, Taft hosting a pool of former City Section champions across different divisions. Led by Bazylevych’s golden arm and Borick’s steady hands, the Toreadors beat last season’s Open Division champion Venice 2-0 (25-18, 25-14) in the finals to cap an undefeated run.
Bazylevych said over the summer she was shooting for City player of the year, and it’s hard to argue with her candidacy after one glimpse at the 6-foot-1 outside hitter’s missile-like spikes. Borick, meanwhile, is anywhere and everywhere at all times — diving on the floor for a dig, skying for a kill, delivering a picturesque set or dropping in an ace.
Sure, the two might seem at each other’s throats sometimes. But they’re really trying to strangle the competition.
“The two kids who won the beach championship,” San Pedro coach Sean Zuvich said, “are killers.”
Stressed in paradise
The call was always in the back of Darrin Phillips’
mind, threatening to send him running from the gym to catch the next flight home.
Stefanie Wigfall,
Chatsworth Sierra Canyon’s coach, was pregnant with her second child and inching closer to her due date. So before the season-opening Ann Kang tournament in Hawaii, she made the decision with Phillips, her husband and assistant coach, that he would fly there to coach and she would stay behind.
But the day he touched down on the island, Wigfall went into false labor. Phillips nearly turned right around. He stayed, tough as it was, and Wigfall spent her days watching the tournament’s livestream on Facebook and YouTube.
“I’m just patiently waiting — not that patiently, but just hoping he gets home before things get going on this side,” Wigfall said Aug. 13, a day before the event ended.
On Thursday night, the two welcomed a new Trailblazer to the family — Cole Joseph Phillips. Sierra Canyon, meanwhile, beat Santa Margarita on Wednesday to improve to 9-1.
Stars of the week
8 Layli Ostovar, a freshman playing in her first high school game for Santa Ana Mater Dei, tallied five kills and a couple of blocks Thursday against a daunting opponent in Manhattan Beach Mira Costa.
8 Madyson Smith racked up 10 kills without an error in Aliso Niguel’s season-opening win against rival Santa Ana Foothill on Tuesday.
8 Chatsworth senior Geraldine Martinez, the City Section player of the year her freshman season, had 15 kills in a win over San Pedro on Thursday.