Gold team wins the Westside Boys Volleyball All-Star Exhibition – Volleyball news
The Westside Boys Volleyball All-Star Exhibition took place on Wednesday and featured five players from the Santa Monica High boys volleyball team. The match was played between the Blue and Gold teams at the Samohi’s gym.
The event was an endeavour that was made possible by Liane Sato, who is the coach of the Samohi team. It was an attempt to give a chance to the top 16 players from five different area programs to polish their skills before the summer break commenced. The
Santa Monica players that took part in the event were Charles Levy, Jack Cramer, Julian Hess , Trevor Pye and Eric Barber.
Sato had not pre-planned the event and did not expect the sort of response he got upon invitation. "It was really a last-minute thing, I just asked the coaches to pick players they thought would like to do it and they were very receptive. If they want to
continue it next year that would be great," he said.
With the best players competing against each other, what followed was an exciting and thrilling match of volleyball that went on to five long and grueling sets. However, the team that was able to seal the deal was Gold, who bagged the match at the following
final set scores: 22-25, 23-25, 25-16, 26-24 and 15-9.
Despite the fact that the Gold team fought hard in the first two sets, the Blue team prevailed due to their consistency. However, after having suffered a 2-0 deficit, the Gold team was able to rally together and step up their game to earn a decisive win
in the third set. The Blue team gave tough competition to the Gold as they were determined to finish off the match at 3-1 but the Gold team prevailed. After an intense fifth set, the Gold team proved to be the better of the two.
As the match was aimed at improving the skills of the participating players and giving them a sound learning experience, the officials did not keep any statistics on the kills, blocks and digs. However, the players that visibly outperformed the rest in the
Gold team were Charles Levy as well as Ryan Manoogian. Levy and Manoogian both are the outside hitters for their respective teams.
The players that stood prominent on the Blue team were Hess and Andy Aguila. Hess plays as the middle blocker for Santa Monica while Aguila is the outside hitter for the Culver City team.
According to Aguila, the factor that was responsible for the loss of the first two sets by the Gold team was a lack of team coordination. Once the players got to know how the other behaves, they were able to pull off a victory by winning the last three sets.
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