Daily Pilot High School Athletes of the Week: Twin powers key for Edison’s run
As young children, no one was predicting that the Dennison sisters would have long careers in the game of volleyball.
Their parents had played a handful of other sports. Richard, the father, had competed in baseball, basketball and swimming. Their mother, Darlene, had been a cheerleader and also played softball.
Make the connection between the two, and of course, the athletic exploits of the Dennison kids began as fine softball players.
When the eldest daughter, Taylor, got to high school, she fell in love with volleyball. It had a domino effect, and her younger sisters followed her lead.
Really, Taylor just needed to convince one of her sisters to play volleyball, for they were twins.
Dani and Cassidy did everything together, and if one chose to play volleyball, there was no way that the other wasn’t coming along for the ride.
“They’ve been inseparable,” Edison High Coach Matthew Skolnik said. “I watched them at their older sister’s volleyball games when they were like 10 years old.”
“They do it at home. They’re partners every day in our gym. They’ve played club together every year since they were 12 years old. They love each other.”
The senior twins made regular appearances at Taylor’s games, and their frequent pepper sessions earned them the nickname, “The Dennison Duo.”
Cassidy is an outside hitter, and Dani is a libero. That offense/defense combination is ideal for the one-on-one pepper drill, but Dani’s origins started elsewhere.
Dani, who is the older twin by a minute, started out as a setter. Her club coach, Mike Bonner, converted her to libero because she was good at passing.
The position change took her by surprise, and she was equally taken aback on the day that she received her first varsity start. As a freshman, Dani began the year on the junior varsity team. She kept getting the call to come to the varsity practice.
Finally, it was time to put that practice to the test. She could not have been more nervous, as her first varsity action came in a league road game against Newport Harbor.
“I’ll never forget,” Dani Dennison recalled. “I was on my way to lunch. [Coach Trent Jackson] was like, ‘Hey, so you’re going to be starting today.’ I was like, ‘Uh, okay,’ because I was going to originally play with my team.”
“I asked, ‘Does that mean that I can play for my team and then go to the varsity game?’ He said, ‘No, so you’re going to start tonight for us.’”
It took Cassidy a little bit longer to break through to the varsity level. She got there in her junior year, notching 163 kills. She was a full-time starter for the Chargers this year, and the outside hitter responded by upping her kill count to 424.
Dani was the first to be born and the first to make it onto varsity, but Cassidy says she’s got the edge on her twin in one important area: She will be a minute younger when they are in their 80’s.
“That’s when it’s going to count,” she joked.
In their first full season of playing together for the Chargers, the Dennison Duo helped their school make history. Edison won its first state title in sweeping Menlo-Atherton last Friday.
The twins say they tried to get their teammates to see the playoffs as just another match, one in which the teams play to 25 in a best-of-five-sets format.
When it came down to it, they had a hard time seeing the state championship that way.
“When you walk out onto that stage, you’re representing your whole entire career,” Cassidy Dennison said. “I’m representing my coaches since I was 12. I’m representing the people who have cheered me on, who have wanted this success for me.”
“I wanted to make sure that I gave it my all because that was it. I wanted to make each person proud.”
Dani, a TCU commit, Edison’s all-time digs leader wtih 1,380. Cassidy is still looking at her options. The prospect of college may present the most uncertainty that the twins have ever faced.
“College is definitely going to be hard because I’ve never really been apart from her,” Cassidy Dennison said of their relationship outside of volleyball. “That is what actually pans out on the court. You can tell the chemistry that we have off the court when it comes to being on the court. We know each other well.”
Winning a state championship was the ultimate way for the twins to end their high school career.
They may have simply been following the path of their trailblazer, Taylor, who could be seen as their inspiration for entering the sport in the first place.
Taylor was a senior at Concordia University this year, and the Eagles won the Pac-West Conference title.
So it is that the Dennisons, as a trio, won championships in their collective senior year. That is going out with a bang.
Dani Dennison
Born: April 22, 1999
Hometown: Huntington Beach
Height: 5-foot-8
Weight: 124 pounds
Sport: Volleyball
Year: Senior
Coach: Matthew Skolnik
Favorite food: Tacos
Favorite movie: “Lone Survivor”
Favorite athletic moment: Bringing home Edison’s first state title in girls’ volleyball because of the historical ramifications of the victory for the school.
Week in review: The libero had a game-high 19 digs in the Chargers’ state championship victory over Menlo-Atherton.
Cassidy Dennison
Born: April 22, 1999
Hometown: Huntington Beach
Height: 5-foot-9
Weight: 145 pounds
Sport: Volleyball
Year: Senior
Coach: Matthew Skolnik
Favorite food: Tacos
Favorite movie: “The Choice”
Favorite athletic moment: Winning the state championship because it was the best way to go out in their senior year.
Week in review: The outside hitter had 10 kills and six digs as the Chargers defeated Menlo-Atherton, 25-20, 25-20, 25-18, in the CIF State Division 1 championship on Friday at Santiago Canyon College.
