Head Coach: Lori Gragnola
Last year’s record: 6-6
Recap: The team qualified for CCS for the second year in a row, falling to Kings City 3-1 in the first quarterfinal game.
Key Matchups: Del Mar, Fremont and Milpitas
Star Players: sophomore middle blocker Aanya Hotha and senior setter Narmeen Khericha
Key losses to graduation: setter Ariel Zhou, outside hitter Anjali Aarkoti and libero Natalie Chua
League: El Camino
Prognosis:
After a strong performance last season, advancing to CCS, the team is optimistic about their chances to advance to CCS again with the addition of three talented freshmen — outside Chloe Zeng, libero Arielle Fan and middle Rusha Patil.
To guide the Falcons this year, the boys’ and girls’ volleyball coaches have switched, with Lori Gragnola taking over the head coach position for girls’ varsity and Robert Chen leading the girls’ JV team; the two coached the boys’ varsity and JV teams last year.
So far in league, the team played two away games, narrowly losing 3-2 to Milpitas on Sept. 16 and beating Wilcox 3-1 on Sept. 11. They also played a total of five preseason games at the Sept. 7 tournament hosted at Los Altos: The Falcons won 2-0 against Los Altos, Monta Vista and Gunn, lost 2-1 to Menlo and 2-0 to Homestead. The team is set to play its next game away to Fremont on Sept. 18.
After a strong performance against Wilcox and a narrow loss against Milpitas, Gragnola thinks the team will make CCS, especially with their defense led by sophomore libero Morgan Li and offense led by sophomore middle Aanya Hotha.
During the game against Milpitas, Hotha performed extraordinarily well, leading their team to victory in the first set. Unfortunately, the game ended in a loss.
Despite their positive results so far, senior middle blocker Shreya Raghuvanshi believes that the team can perform even better, as they grow accustomed to playing together, saying, “Everyone has good skills, but I think it’s going to take some work to find team chemistry with all the new players and adjust to each other’s skills.”
