The varsity girls are ready to fill their ranks with new team members to replace the graduated seniors.
A new season has begun for the varsity girls volleyball team as they prepare to face new challenges this season.
For the past five years in a row, the girls made the second round of playoffs. Since six senior players graduated last year, the team dynamic is up for change. Coach Colin Anderson, who has coached the team for the past 11 years, looks forward to filling the ranks with new, talented players during tryouts.
“I don’t have a fixed number of players in mind,” Anderson said. “[I look for] what is going to bring the right mix of skills to the team.”
The turnout for varsity tryouts this year, held from Fri. Aug. 16 to Wed. Aug. 21, was larger than in previous years, yielding more freshmen and sophomores trying their chances. According to Anderson, most players in his team have participated in club volleyball, but several are fresh off the bat, never having touched a volleyball in their lives.
Co-captain senior Beverly Yu is going into her fourth year playing on the varsity team. Yu hopes to see a strong defense next year – the team’s strength lies in serving and offensive plays.
“Even though we lost a lot of our players last year, I think that we’re going to have a very solid team,” Yu said. “We have some stuff that we need to work on, of course, but I think its okay. The players on our team have a lot of potential.”
MVHS’ volleyball team is part of the De Anza League, a group of competitive teams including the FUHSD and surrounding schools such as Saratoga High School. Senior Alice Liu, the other co-captain of the team, is also a fourth year Varsity player. Liu says that the competition has a lot of experience and an advantage in height that allows for strong defense. Anderson entrusts his team to play their best to excel in this environment.
“We play against a lot of top, talented teams, which is great [since] it makes us play high level volleyball,” Anderson said. “I would much rather see us play really well against good teams than to beat up teams that don’t challenge us.”
MVHS’ first home scrimmage game will be against Salinas High School on September 9th at 6:30 p.m.
