Varsity boys volleyball swept Cupertino High School 25-23, 27-25, 27-25 on their senior night on May 1.
Seniors Zachary Blue, Kyle Johnson, Jordan Labio, Adrian Liu, Spencer Mak, Edis Mesic and Jack Shen walked out one by one with their families before the game. Head coach Mason Tufuga highlighted each senior’s favorite moment from the season while the players received flowers and personalized posters from family and friends who came to support them.
“My teammates are like family to me, and I look forward every day to going to volleyball practice,” Jordan said. “At first, I wasn’t very confident in my volleyball game because I’ve never played competitive volleyball before, but these guys really welcomed me into the team and that really helped me grow.”
In an all-senior lineup, the Eagles scored the first point, but Cupertino soon took the lead with a streak of aces and kills. Outside hitter Zachary, middle blocker Edis and setter Adrian battled back with kills, closing the score gap. Cupertino then won multiple points with strong swings that bounced off of Harker’s blocks, but the Eagles leveled the score 17-17. The teams continued to fight point-for-point and at 21-21, the Pioneers called a timeout. After their second timeout at 24-22, Cupertino hit the ball out on game point, allowing Harker to win the set 25-23.
“Senior night is obviously very charged, emotion-wise, so we wanted to get everyone in there and make sure everyone has a spot,” assistant coach Kyle Chamberlain said. “The student section did great, they had a very big part to play in the game. They were riling our guys up in a good way, so that whenever we had a lull they put us back into it. That was needed for us to win in three.”
The Eagles continued their dominating streak at the start of the third set. Kyle scored three points in a row with two kills and a block, prompting the Pioneers to call a timeout at 5-1. Despite Harker’s lead of 9-6, Cupertino soon caught up, tying the score at 16-16 with kills and well-placed tips. An ace and serving run from Adrian helped Harker regain their lead. On game point, Edis and Adrian blocked a Cupertino swing, causing Cupertino to lift the ball and lose to Harker 27-25.
“One thing we did well was that we made sure the ball didn’t go out a lot and the mistakes we made were small mistakes,” libero Luke Wu (10) said. “We profited a lot from really smart shots like hitting it to [Cupertino’s] weakest defense, and our offense stayed really disciplined. On the bench, we created a lot of personal cheers and made our seniors feel really proud of themselves, and that motivated them to do well.”
The team concluded their regular season with a 25-9 record and the first-place spot in the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League De Anza division. They played an away game rematch against Archbishop Mitty in the Central Coast Section Open Division quarterfinals on Tuesday and lost 19-25, 26-28, 18-25.