Knowing the monster ahead of them following their first round win, the seniors on the boys’ volleyball team knew they had to call on desperate measures in desperate times.
With the defending Division I CIF champions of Mira Costa staring across them on the other side of the net, the Wolverines wanted to look equally intimidating, so they busted out razors and all sported mohawks to the game.
“It was a rallying point,” Byron Lazaroff-Puck ’13 said. “We needed to come at Mira Costa with shock and awe, and at that point the mohawk was a last ditch resort, and we had to go for it.”
Though the intimidation tactic did not faze top-seeded Mira Costa, as the Wolverines fell in three straight sets, the game represented the culmination of one of the best boys’ volleyball seasons in years.
Beau McGinley ’13 said that not only was he happy just to have gotten to the game but he was happy with how the team played against Mira Costa.
“We did well getting up to that point,” McGinley said.
“We left a couple points in the gym in Mira Costa, I thought we could have taken one game, but in the end, we actually played our best volleyball of the year. We were just outmatched, so I’d say it was a success getting to that point.”
To get to that point, the Wolverines finished 16-9-1 in the regular season as well as 8-4 in Mission League play, good enough for second place in league standings.
The Wolverines then beat Newbury Park at home in the first round of playoffs before the loss to Mira Costa.
The Wolverines expected the Newbury Park game to be highly competitive after the Wolverines won narrowly in an earlier matchup that year, but the Wolverines won in three straight sets.
“Newbury Park is a fantastic volleyball team,” Lazaroff-Puck said. “The fact that we managed to rally and beat them for the second time was awesome. Against Mira Costa, I’m not going to say it was a lost cause, but we went into it expecting what was going to happen but we came out with probably a better turnout than we expected.”
Nine seniors on the team will graduate this June. Head Coach Adam Black said the seniors were not only very talented but also had great chemistry on the court together and were crucial to the team’s success this year.
“When you lose nine seniors that had some volleyball in their life and frankly nine seniors that are pretty close, that leaves an open book that still needs to be written, so we’re hoping that the young guys can fill it in,” Black said. “I’m confident in the younger guys. They have some volleyball experience, they’re playing club and some of the younger guys got some good experience on JV this year with good coaching, so I’m pretty excited to start fresh, build them up and see where they can be by their senior year.”
