Menlo School is seeded third in CCS Open Division volleyball

Sometime before or after Palo Alto’s girls volleyball match at Mountain View this season, Vikings coach Chris Crader posed a rhetorical question for Spartans coach Dave Winn.

“I asked him, ‘Dave, let’s meet up in the CCS finals,’ ” Crader said Thursday, following the release of the Central Coast Section Open and Division I through V brackets. “He was cool with that.”

That’s exactly what might happen in the Division I tournament, where Mountain View is the top seed and Palo Alto is No. 2.

“It’s a good league,” Crader said of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League and its five teams from the De Anza Division and two teams from the El Camino Division all playing in Division I. “We knew it was a good league. When I came over from the (Peninsula Athletic League, where he coached at Carlmont), there were a lot of good players and good, smart coaches in this league.”

Los Altos is seeded third, Monta Vista is fourth and Gunn is fifth. El Camino affiliates Cupertino earned the No. 8 seed and Fremont the No. 10 seed.

Mountain View solidified the top seed after handing SCVAL champion Los Gatos its first (and only) league loss 25-22, 20-25, 28-26, 23-25, 15-13 earlier this week.

In that match, junior Tessa Hunter recorded a team-high 13 kills, served five aces and made 26 digs. Junior Millie Kopp added 12 kills and Andisheh Turner had 11 kills, 14 digs and 26 assists.

Senior Anya Kesselring added 12 digs and 14 assists, and junior Lydia Weeks recorded 20 digs.

Menlo-Atherton is seeded seventh in Division I and will be playing at Fremont at 7 p.m. Saturday. Gunn hosts Piedmont Hills at 2 p.m.

Mountain View, Palo Alto and Los Altos all received first-round byes. The Spartans host the winner of the Alisal-Cupertino match, Paly hosts the winner of the M-A-Fremont match, and Los Altos hosts the North Salinas-San Benito match, all at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

“I’m glad we’re not playing Saturday. It gives us a chance to rest,” Crader said. “It gives us a chance to play another home match. If we play well we have a chance of winning. If we play poorly, we have a chance to lose.”

West Bay Athletic League champion Menlo School earned a No. 3 seed in the Open Division and will play No. 6 Sacred Heart Prep on Saturday morning in a rematch of a five-set marathon that Menlo won earlier in the week.

Menlo’s seed might be a bit surprising but it’s not a shock. The Knights lost to No. 4 seed St. Francis but also beat Valley Christian twice, which beat St. Francis. Menlo also has wins over six league champions (Hillsdale, Los Gatos, Castilleja, Tesoro, Lakewood and Newport Harbor) and finished the regular season with a 16-match winning streak.

St. Francis meets No. 5 Hillsdale at 11 a.m. Saturday morning in Mountain View. Hillsdale’s only loss of the season was to Menlo in the championship match of the Chris Chandler Invitational.

Castilleja earned the top seed in Division V and will host the winner of the Santa Catalina-Nueva match on Tuesday at 7 p.m.

Castilleja put together an impressive resume on the season. The Gators lost four times all year to Menlo, Sacred Heart Prep, Mountain View and Palo Alto. Castilleja, who has won 16 straight, also has wins over Nueva, Summit Shasta, Mountain View, Salinas, Gunn and Fremont.

The Open Division and Division I finals will be held at Gunn on Saturday, Nov. 6, while the Division V final is scheduled for Palo Alto.

Redwood City attorney sues ‘First Amendment auditors’ after Menlo Park disputeApril 2, 2026 11:31 am

Copper-stealing crooks cause phone and internet outages in Portola ValleyApril 3, 2026 11:08 am

Caltrain facing station closures, service cuts amid budget woesApril 3, 2026 12:00 pm