The spring season volleyball team is back at it again

The VHS boys volleyball teams, both JV and varsity, are back in season. Compared to the more popular sports like track & field, basketball and football, the relatively “unknown” sport on campus has returned and seems to have nearly a dozen new players under its belt, many being upperclassmen. The varsity team lost their season last year, only winning five games out of the 31 they played. However, they are hoping to change that outcome for the 2024 season. 

While the team didn’t win last season, they were off to a better start this year, but that luck was short-lived. In the beginning, the team had won two non-league games against Channel Islands and Carpinteria High Schools by great margins. Regarding the successful Carpinteria game, Theodore Souther Pasqurella ‘26 said, “For the first set, we were cruising, we went up by 10, 15 points. In the second set, we kind of lost it. The third set sealed the deal and the fourth set, we just needed to come home.”

All was going well until they had a loss with VHS’ cross-town rivals, BHS, for their league premiere. Since losing Buena game on Feb. 29, they’ve been having a rather tough time getting back on their feet. So far, the VHS boys have lost their three league games to Buena, Dos Pueblos and Oxnard and lost their tournament in San Luis Obispo.

Victor Villaloboz ‘24 said, “Well, it’s strange. On eye level we aren’t doing good [2-8 record], but some games I’d say three or four games were lost due to us just choking, or not being able to close the game.” 

Fletcher Duffey ‘27 said, “Unfortunately we have not won any of these [league and tournament] games. Some of them were very close and we had a good chance of beating them, but we just couldn’t get the right points at the right time. The team has been performing alright so far but there were definitely things we could be doing better. I think that we need to stop making so many errors because right now we are giving the opposing team lots of free points which is making it much harder for our team to win.”

Despite the losses, the team is still looking forward to future games and is optimistic that they will manage to redeem themselves for the rest of the season. Villaloboz said, “It already is [a greater season than the last], in the sense of team chemistry and depth. Can’t say record yet because we need to get our wins back up and surpass last season, but we are already better a better team versus last seasons team at its best. Edward Pacula [the VHS boys volleyball coach] once said, ‘even if we [are] at the bottom, its only up from here.’” 

Souther Pasquarella said, “I think the rest of the season will see a lot of potential for this team and a lot of good things can happen. We have some good potential players and we just need to connect to them and good things will happen.”

The team also needs more support and encourages Cougars to check out the sport, located in the gymnasium. Villaloboz said, “Come support boys volleyball, although we choke/throw our games it would help to have some fans who have never seen it before.”