Mira Costa volleyball to honor Holly McPeak before match with Redondo

The volleyball tradition runs deep at Mira Costa High.

Girls volleyball coach Cameron Green decided this would be the season to start honoring that tradition a bit more.

Starting Tuesday night, Green said he plans to honor some of the stars of the past with jersey retirement ceremonies.

First up will be Holly McPeak, who led the Mustangs to 1985 and 1986 CIF-SS Division 5A championships and went on to star in college and beach volleyball, won an Olympic medal and was elected to the International Volleyball Hall of Fame in 2009.

The ceremony is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m., before the the start of the Bay League match between Redondo and Mira Costa.

“Look at the hallway here (in Mira Costa’s new gym) and look at all of the names,” Green said last week. “It just seem like it was time. It was sort of odd that no one had done it before. Now that we have this big, beautiful gym, it just felt like the right thing to do to honor the alumni.

“We talk about them so much. We talk about following their footsteps and I thought it was appropriate that the first would be Holly McPeak. She was one of the original players … She’s someone, when I was growing up, I looked up to and I knew when she was playing at Mira Costa.

“Each year I would like to recognize someone. We’re really proud of alumni here, and we know that we have some shoes to fill, so we think it is important to make sure we know that we respect them and we’re doing our best to do things right for them.”

McPeak led the Mustangs to two CIF-SS titles under Dae Lea Aldrich then played at Cal and UCLA before embarking on a stellar beach volleyball career.

“That name really stands out in this community,” Green said, “so to me, it was an easy choice. “It’s a tough choice, but it just made sense that (the first) is Holly.”