Molly Kornfeind, a junior at Palisades High, was named the Los Angeles City Division II volleyball Player of the Year for the second consecutive season, winning the award unanimously. Additionally, the 6’0′ Kornfeind was voted her team’s Most Valuable Player as the Dolphins won their second straight City championship (and fourth in five years) in November. In the finals against Taft, which Pali won in five games, Kornfeind had a match-high 12 kills, 20 digs and two aces. As a sophomore, the pin hitter (she can hit from either side) had 225 kills. She had 326 this year. ’She’s a great kid, never a complaint,’ said PaliHi coach Chris Forrest. ‘A lot of kids who win honors get cocky. Not Molly. She’s humble, she really works hard and continually asks, ‘What do I need to do to get better?” On Christmas Eve, Kornfeind baked cookies and delivered them to the nurses and staff at the Santa Monica-UCLA Hospital pediatric floor to thank them for their assistance in her recovery from a life-threatening illness in 2009. Early in her freshman year, the Pacific Palisades resident missed two months of school because she was in the ICU with swine flu and pneumonia, which resulted in MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) in her lungs, requiring surgery. During her illness, Kornfeind lost 30 pounds and most of her muscle mass. ’She wanted to thank them because they literally saved her life,’ said mom Gina Kornfeind, a social worker. ‘She is so grateful for her health and her ability to train and play at this high level.’ Forrest recalled that Kornfeind made the varsity team as a freshman and played in a tournament in La Jolla before she fell ill and had to be hospitalized. Her teammates dedicated every game to her, and she managed to return by the playoffs (but had to wear a mask). At age 9, the precocious Kornfeind was a starter for the Palisades Volleyball Club’s 12-year-old team before moving to the Sunshine club team, now coached by Mike Campbell and Stefanie Wigfall. Kornfeind and her Sunshine teammates left Tuesday for Italy, where they will play against other international teams. ’The trip is a coaching clinic led by Russ Rose, the Penn State women’s volleyball coach, and several girls teams are going to play,’ said Gina Kornfeind. ‘Molly is paying for her own trip using money she made from working one summer at the St. Matthew’s day camp.’ Kornfeind returns on January 3, and in February will play in a college coach-recruiting tournament in Las Vegas. ’If she doesn’t play Division I, I’ll be surprised,’ coach Forrest said, adding that Kornfeind is also strong academically (a 3.8 GPA). ‘When we participated in a tournament earlier with a lot of Southern-Section schools, she was a standout. Coaches would ask, ‘Who is that player?” Molly, who attended St. Matthew’s, has three sisters. Meredith, an All-Western League selection three of the four years she played soccer at PaliHi, now attends Elon, where she plays club soccer. Lindsay, 14, plays soccer for her St. Matthew’s team and the Westside Breakers, and Maggie, 8, plays on an AYSO U10 all-star team (while also playing on a basketball team coached by her father, Fred, a psychologist at the Veterans Administration campus in Brentwood). The three younger Kornfeinds are active in Girl Scouts, and Molly is also involved with PaliHi’s Best Buddy club, which means spending time with special-education students at lunchtime once or twice a week. Mom Gina volunteers as a Scout leader and was an AYSO Region 69 girls commissioner for several years.
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
