One of sport’s great axioms is this: It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.
But it’s sure nice to be sitting in a tie for first place with October just around the corner. That’s exactly the situation the Los Gatos High girls volleyball team finds itself in as it entered the week at 11-5 overall and 4-0 in the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League’s De Anza Division.
Los Gatos and Palo Alto have identical 4-0 league records entering this week’s play. If both teams win their respective contests on Sept. 27, they’ll duke it out for sole possession of first place two days later. The Wildcats’ most recent win came in a three-set sweep of Los Altos, 25-20, 26-24, 25-18. Mia Halsey and Nicole Steiner combined for 19 kills, but six other players—Allison Black, Maya Walker, Britt Melinauskas, Reilly Ann Mendez and Portia Zeidler—recorded kills, a testament to the team’s potent offense.
Walker had four of the team’s eight service aces to just six service errors, one of the more underrated and undervalued impact stats at the high school level. It’s typical for a team to have more errors than aces, which means they’re basically giving away points.
However, the Wildcats’ serving prowess vs. Los Altos shows they value playing clean volleyball in every phase of the game. Black, a senior, and Zeidler, a 6-foot-3 sophomore, made their presence felt at the net, combining for six blocks.
Coach Nicole Ciari was delighted in the team’s ability to win a riveting Game 2 in which it trailed 20-17 before rallying late. Walker caught Los Altos off guard with a dump to give the Wildcats a 24-23 lead. After a hitting error, Melinauskas won a joust at the net and Steiner followed with a kill for a two games to none advantage.
“I know we didn’t play our best in the second set, but the mental growth that we saw was incredible,” Ciari said. “It’s something we’ve struggled with since the beginning of the season, is that we come out super strong in set one, we’re OK not doing great in set two and pick up the slack in the following sets. So being behind by a couple of points and then dig back and then come back and win 26-24 is incredible. The mental growth in this match, I’m so proud of them.”
Ciari pointed to preparation and match play as the reason for the growth and progress.
“It comes from playing,” she said. “It’s not something you can teach in practice or go over and give them the answer to. Each kid, each athlete, has to kind of figure out what’s going to internally motivate them to continue to push forward. And we spend a lot of time talking about it. All of our whiteboards are full of our whys—what motivates us, what we do for our teammates, what our teammates do for us, all those types of things. So we’ve worked hard to figure that out.”
The team is balanced and different players are on point from match to match. Against Los Altos, senior libero Sarah Herman and junior outside hitter Halsey were big-time difference-makers. Liberos like Herman can make a vital impact because cohesive communication in the back row often results in turning defense into offense.
“We’ve been working so hard to get our liberos to take more balls,” Ciari said. “It really releases our other hitters to be offensive options for us, and she [Herman] did that. She was calling balls in, her teammates had to listen to her and give her the right of way, and she was picking up everything.”
Halsey also impressed with her ability to adjust on the attack. Not every set is going to be ideal and hitters need to adjust in mid-air at times, so it’s paramount for them to respond accordingly.
“Mia Halsey swinging at out of system balls high and deep, that is something she hasn’t been able to do in the past and it really showed she’s been working on it and getting better at it,” Ciari said.
Steiner has emerged as an incredibly dependable six-row rotation player, strong on serve-receive and producing at times highlight-reel digs that fall on the other side of the net for a point.
“Nicole is a powerhouse,” Ciari said. “That was going to be her biggest development, was that back row play to get better in those three back row rotations. She’s doing that. She’s an athlete, she wants to grind, she wants to get better and there’s nothing you can put in her way that she won’t be able to do.”
In all of her years of coaching, Ciari said it’s been remarkable to see how this team has jelled instantaneously.
“I’ve never seen a team that’s this close from the get-go,” she said. “Even the newcomers who weren’t a part of the team last year fell right in stride with everyone else. It’s been incredible to watch and the chemistry you see is real.”
