Manava Pedro in Junior Olympics

Joe Naiman

Village News Reporter

During the CIF boys volleyball season, Manava Pedro plays for Fallbrook High School and Chip Patterson is the Warriors’ head coach. During the club season, Pedro plays for the Vista-based SD Beach club and Patterson is one of the coaches.

The SD Beach 17 Black Club, which included Pedro and Patterson, played in the Junior Olympics tournament July 4-6 in Las Vegas and finished fifth among more than 90 teams in their division. The team compiled a 6-3 record during the three days of Junior Olympics play.

“I think it was good,” Pedro said. “We played I’d say the best that we’ve played that season.”

Eleven SD Beach 17 Black Club players made the trip to Las Vegas. Ariel Milo, who is the Classical Academy coach, was the head coach and Patterson assisted Milo.

The division was for 17-and-under players although six of the SD Beach players, including Pedro, were 16 years old and one of the players was 15. Pedro was a junior during the 2022 CIF season.

SD Beach began competition with four July 4 pool play matches. The first was a win over the AJV club from Austin, Texas.

The next match for SD Beach was against the Mavs from North Carolina, who won the Eastern Region championship. The Mavs won the first set and SD Beach countered with a win in the second set. The match thus came down to the third set. On two occasions, SD Beach had match point, but the Mavs overcame those deficits and won by a 17-15 score.

SD Beach concluded July 4 play with a win over the 303 Volleyball Club from Colorado and a victory over SVC.

The results thus gave SD Beach a 3-1 record for the first day. “They started out strong. They beat a lot of teams,” Patterson said.

The loss to the Mavs gave SD Beach second place in the pool, and the July 5 competition for the SD Beach club was against the other second-place pool teams. SD Beach won all three matches, defeating the Ohio Volleyball Club and LIV squads before winning the day’s final match against the Pulse team based in San Diego.

Winning the second-place pool teams bracket put SD Beach back into the championship bracket for the July 6 matches. SD Beach was seeded seventh among the eight teams. The top-seeded Richmond team out of Virginia was the first opponent for SD Beach. That match went to three sets before Richmond won the third set by a 17-15 overscore.

The final match for SD Beach was against Bayside, which is based in the San Francisco Bay area. Bayside defeated SD Beach in two sets. “We had no answer for them,” Patterson said.

Bayside, which was seeded second, won the tournament.

The loss to Bayside was the only SD Beach defeat which didn’t have a third set with an overscore. “I think we really worked together as a team that tournament,” Pedro said.

Pedro was the SD Beach setter and played in all of the club’s games. “I really think I had a good impact on the team and helped them,” he said.

Based on who in the championship bracket SD Beach defeated in prior matches, the club was given fifth place for the tournament after losing twice in the championship rounds.