Boys Volleyball 2024: The Sequel to the Best Season Ever

Brayden Brewer, Staff Writer, Sports News

February 29, 2024

Abel Nieto (10), Hitting a backrow pipe during tuesday game against Eastside at GVHS

In 2023, Golden Valley Boys Volleyball had their best season in school history. They went 21-8, and finished third in the Foothill League. This year they look to improve upon their record, and they’re coming for the Foothill League title.

Last year, volleyball made it to the playoffs for the first time in program history, where they lost to Troy High School in the first round. They returned a large group from last year, including seniors Abel Nieto and Peter Hall.

Nieto spoke highly about this year’s team, and has big-time goals for them, saying “I think we’re gonna win league and division five this year, and I’m confident we’ll make it to state.” After last year’s 21-8 season, they’ve started the season at 6-2.

Golden Valley’s Nicholas Walkdron (3), hits the ball over the net against Eastside (Noa Prothais)

They are focused on this year, and using last year to gauge what they need to improve. Coach Sam Hand said, “[Last year] our inability to control our first touches made things much harder than they needed to be.” Hall said, “Our communication as a whole could use some work.”

This year, Coach Hand says they’ve found more success “increasing the speed of the play on our side of the net and turning defensive touches into offensive plays. We’ve been responding to hits and tips from other teams with much more fluidity and keeping our system working.” He also stated “I think just the pure skill of all of our hitters and diversity of offensive options will take this team further than before. We can simply score from anywhere on the net and that’s going to give other teams in the league a lot of problems.”

Peter Hall (11), from Golden Valley, preparing a float serve. (Noa Prothais)

They’re a tight-knit team, which both Nieto and Hall think will lead to them having success. “One aspect that will lead us to be a better team this year is our team bonding outside of school. I talk to these guys every day and that trust that we build outside of volleyball can be used on the court” said Hall. He also added, “The team is closer than most sports because we’re smaller in numbers and most of us have played with each other for at least three years.” Nieto said “We’re a fun team this year. We work hard, pull up, show out, and do our thing.”

Repeating and improving on the success that they had last year will be a challenge, however, this year’s boys volleyball team is up for it, and looking to improve on their record on Thursday, February 29, when they play their first league game, at home against Castaic.

About the Contributors

Brayden Brewer, Staff Writer

Brayden Brewer is a staff writer for the Grizzly Gazette on the Sports News Team and the captain of the baseball team here at Golden Valley. He is a senior who has played baseball all four years of high school and has a deep interest and understanding in the world of sports. Aside from sports, he loves country music and lifting weights. His favorite artist is Zach Bryan. Brayden wants to go into sports journalism in college and continue with it as a career. He wants to cover all of the sports that he can at Golden Valley, and continues to regularly attend GV sports events. Brayden’s favorite teams are the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Kings, and his favorite baseball players are Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole, and Anthony Volpe. His favorite hockey player is Adrian Kempe because he is the best scorer the Kings have had since the greatest hockey player of all time, Wayne Gretzky. He also loves watching Penn State football on Saturdays and is excited for the Drew Allar era.

Noa Prothais, Staff Writer

Noa Prothais is in 10th grade, she is bilingual in French and english. She is a staff writer on the Sports News Team for the Grizzly Gazette. Outside of school work Noa is part of the XC and Track team, and after school she does ballet. She's on varsity for both Track and XC and has been doing ballet for almost 9-10 years. After only doing track for a few months last year she went to CIF. Being an athlete she’s very passionate about writing sports so that she can hopefully share the journey of individual teams or student athlete, she wants to be able to share about personal records and team environment to encourage the respect and time it takes to commit to a sport, she’d also like to write about student spotlight stories or CEPAT, because it involves more than one topic. She really wants to be part of the grizzly gazette to learn more about this profession to hopefully pursue this in the future. She loves writing, running, and dancing, occasionally drawing.