Sierra League volleyball not making it easy on voters

The Sierra League volleyball teams aren't making it easy on the CIF-SS voters. As of Monday, Ayala rose to the No. 10 spot in Division 2AA to give the league three teams in the top 10. Tuesday, two of those teams lost. If that wasn't enough, it created a four-way tie for second place behind defending CIF champion St. Lucy's, which is ranked No. 1.

No. 3 Chino Hills, which shared the league title with St. Lucy's last season and faced it in the 2010 CIF-SS championship match, fell to West Covina South Hills on Tuesday. Ayala, which had already beaten South Hills, lost to Claremont on Tuesday. That left Ayala, South Hills, Chino Hills and Claremont all tied for second place with a 2-2 league mark.

"I think we probably have the best league in the area," Claremont coach Chris Duarte-McDermott said. "Put us all in another league and we'd probably all be challenging for league titles. It's going to be a dogfight to get out of league but whoever gets out is going to be well prepared for CIF."

St. Lucy's may be two games up in the standings, but it took a five-game match and then some for the Regents to outlast Chino Hills when they met for the first time this season last week.