Varsity Boys Volleyball defeated Homestead High School 3-0 on Friday, March 11, winning its first league and home game. The team was offensively strong and finished the first two sets with scores of 25-17 and 25-13 respectively.

Junior Jesse Li believes that the team excelled at “not letting the ball drop,” which allowed the Matadors to dominate throughout the game. In the beginning of the third set, however, HHS took the lead, but MVHS was able to make a comeback when HHS was down 6-9. In spite of that, the team made mistakes that led them to a 24-24 tie. Both teams exchanged the leads until MVHS was able to maintain a two-point lead, and ended with a final score of 29-27. 

“We got too complacent with winning,” Li said. “[During the] first two sets, [we won] by a big margin, so then [during] the third set, we relaxed and started playing worse.”

Head coach Paul Chiu agrees with Li and also notes that HHS had stepped up and started making fewer errors in its play compared to the two previous sets, leading to a tight game in the third set. 

Chiu finds that the scores of the first two sets were more unexpected to him than the third one, as he went into the game with the knowledge that HHS is a “tough team.” In addition, Chiu states that the MVHS team is “young” since it consists of four seniors, two juniors and four sophomores, which can sometimes limit bonding between the players. But since most of the players have been teammates during the previous season, Chiu believes the team’s pre-existing chemistry will help lead MVHS to success this season. 

“I think most of the league expects this is the year they’re going to [beat us], so we’re going to have to surprise one opponent at a time,” Chiu said. “[But] we [still] have all [the] usual expectations: win league, compete for CCS and make it [to] NorCal.”

Gallery • 4 Photos

Sophomore Varchas Athreya hits the ball in an attempt to break the 26-26 tie during the third set. Photo by Michelle Zheng