Last year, the MVHS boys volleyball team had an almost perfect season, with a league record of 15-2. However, the Matadors faced an unprecedented loss to Saratoga HS in a tight game that went to five sets. On March 20, MVHS faced off against SHS once more, looking for revenge. MVHS started off strong offensively and kept up it’s momentum throughout the entire game, sweeping SHS by a score of 3-0.

MVHS was able to quickly pull away and increase its lead in the first two sets, winning both with a score of 25-14. With most of its starters out in the third set, the team struggled to keep a solid lead, but still managed to end the set with a 25-23 victory.

For junior Charlie Yi, the game was like any other, but he understood that for the seniors who had suffered a loss against SHS last year, this game was more important.

“It was like the one game they lost last year so they wanted revenge,” Yi said. “For me, or for most of the juniors, we just wanted to come in this third set, play our best.”

Senior Rithvik Madhdhipatla attributed the team’s win in part to its improvement in cleaning up its jumps and tips, something that he says was flawed during the previous game, when they lost to Harker HS at a San Diego tournament. However, even though the Matadors dominated in this game, Yi explains that the team still has a lot to work on offensively.

“I think as a team overall, [our] serve receive was better than usual,” Yi said. “I feel like we could’ve ran the middles better, we set the middles quite a bit, but they weren’t that terminating, so we gotta work on that.”

Madhdhipatla agreed that he would like to set in the middle more in the future. Along with this, he says the team needs to come into the game more focused on its plays.

“We were just trying to, I guess, look good, so [our coach] was trying to get us to focus up and earn the point,” Madhdhipatla said.

As this is his last season playing for MVHS, Madhdhipatla hopes to continue the success the team had last year, working towards not only winning the NorCal championship once more, but also aiming to win CCS, something that the team has missed out on every season.

MVHS’ next home game will be on Wednesday, March 27 against Los Gatos HS at 6:45 p.m.