Boys’ volleyball comes in too hot, leaves matches cold

The Falcon volleyball team got off to a rough start this season with back-to-back losses against Sacred Heart and Leland on March 4 and March 10. These disappointing losses came along with an injury to one of the the team’s best hitters but allowed newer players to get used to varsity-level competition.

The team will be starting this year with returning coach Brad Fredrickson and with several key players like James Kim and Brandon Pak, who is new this year. They will be supported by new players Brandon Pierce, James Huang, Jessie Rogan and Salmaan Javed. The team will be challenged by both controlling their own enthusiasm and also by key match-ups in Los Gatos, Harker and Willow Glen.

In the season’s first game against Sacred Heart, the team was not able to get into good form and consequently lost all three games in the match.

Junior outside hitter Brandon Pierce attributed much of the team’s struggles to poor connections in passing.

“Our passing just wasn’t there,” said Pierce, “but we’ve really worked on it since that game. Many of the passes were too low to set up a good set.”

The match was also difficult for the team due to lack of substitutes for the starting six throughout the match. Although the loss was surely a detriment to the team’s morale, spirit still runs high. This needs to be kept in check, though, because it seems spirit running too high could be a developing problem.

“Sometimes we get too pumped up and forget what we learned,” said sophmore opposite hitter Steven Sun. “We need to practice being more relaxed during games.”

However, the team was not able to keep calm during the March 4 game at Leland and ended up suffering a second three-game loss. The team gave several early leads in the beginning and were not able to close in the closing points. A major factor was the early loss of key hitter James Kim, who dislocated his right thumb early in the first game of the match.

“It really sucks because I’m not able to do normal things like put on my socks, and obviously I won’t be able to play as well for a while,” said Kim.

The team again failed to get into their groove and came into the game a little too pumped up. The boys did not hit their stride until late in the games, but by then it was too late to make a comback and they were therefore dissapointed in their performance.

“We played poorly and were definitely better than that, so it was difficult to see the game go the other way,” said sophmore setter Brandon Pak.

Although the team wasn’t able to close in either of their games, they hope that these first few games don’t set the tone for the season and hope to work on both their passing and keeping calm during matches.