Varsity boys’ volleyball loses to Mountain View High School at home

Ray+Song+%2811%29+prepares+to+make+a+kill+after+Charlie+Molin+%289%29+sets+the+ball.+Harker+lost+to+Mountain+View+High+School+today+after+playing+three+sets.

Catherine Huang

Ray Song (11) prepares to make a kill after Charlie Molin (9) sets the ball. Harker lost to Mountain View High School today after playing three sets.

by Catherine Huang, Asst. Photo Editor

Varsity boys’ volleyball played against Mountain View High School today at home and lost three sets with scores of 20-25, 16-25, and 21-25, and their record for this season so far is 1-4.

Coach Alex Jones feels that the team will do better moving forward in the season.

“[I feel] super optimistic,” he said. “I think that we are starting to understand what it takes to play really well and to play at a high level. We’ve lost three of those matches in five sets, so we’ve gotten a lot of good practice. I think we’ve got a lot of really strong players. We’ve tried a lot of lineups and given a lot of people a chance. I think it’s really good long term, what we’ve done.”

Andrew Gu (11) and Luke Wu (12) made two memorable plays during the game.

“Andrew Gu just totally crushed one down the line. He’s a great hitter and I think it’s the little things for me,” Jones said. “It’s stepping in front, Luke the libero, he did a great job, he stepped in front of the outside to pass a free ball and I think we made some clutch serves at key times.”

Chris Gong, one of two freshmen on the team, thought that the team played hard against Mountain View High School.

“We played pretty well. It was just a matter of being beat on serve-receive because we couldn’t receive their serves, we couldn’t get good enough passes to start our offense and on defense our blocks seemed to somewhat fall apart and they were able to tool us,” he said. “I think that this is a pretty good team and I think that we have a pretty good shot in our league, but it’s just a matter of getting everything together and refining all the little details that will make us a winning team.”

A key moment in the game for him was when he realized a new technique to play better against the other team.

“I think a memorable moment for me was when I figured out how to beat the block and when I was actually able to start getting more kills, it was good,” Chris said.

Luke felt that the team could have worked harder, but the opponent was strong as well.

“It seemed like we could have done better but they were a pretty good team too. The game overall was okay. I tried to pick up a dump, which is basically when an opposite sider flicks it over, and then Andrew Gu picked it up instead, but I was midway through and he hit it over me, so I had to roll over with my other hand, and I picked it up,” he said.

The team plays at the Campbell Volleyball Classic Tournament at Leigh High School this Saturday.