Over the past several months, PV volleyball has undergone a grand journey. According to Kendal Thau, a senior in volleyball, this season “had the most potential out of every year in [her] high school experience.” The voyage began with a series of games sorted by specific types, managed by the California Interscholastic Federation, or CIF. Starting with the non-league, PV faced off against other teams from other cities in the Northern California area, such as Whitney, Yuba City, and Sutter. With some “impressive wins,” PV moved on to the league level and then further advanced to playoffs, going up against schools like Chico High and Shasta. 

Finally, everything came down to one more playoff, this time against Tamalpais. From the get-go, the battle was neck and neck, as PV and Tamalpais went back and forth with score after score. The audience was Audiences were on the edge of their seats as they watched Tamalpais gain an edge, followed by PV fighting to restore the balance, leaving the final round seemingly up to chance. With every point gained by Tamalpais, a second PV point was consecutively earned, making the final moment the tensest part, after waiting for someone to throw the final score into a clear triumph and prove once and for all who gets to move on. As PV’s team endured, it all came down to a split-second moment, where Tamalpais won the point that set in stone their victory, and moved on to the next rounds of games.

However, that wasn’t the end of PV volleyball; about a week later, junior and senior volleyball players banded together to coach and train PV boys for the annual Buff Puff, where, like the Powder Puff, the roles of the guys and girls within their sports are swapped. This year, the boys in the Buff Puff brought a “competitive energy to the game” according to Kendal, and “were excited to be there,” with “quite a bit of camaraderie and support” according to seniors like Hans Gao, a fan favorite who said he “wanted to join a few school events before [he] sets off into the cruel world” after graduating. All in all, he says that the “Buff Puff is a great experience to have,” and that he had “a very close connection with the players, even with only 3 days of practice.” Ultimately, he says “[i]t’s a low stakes game with all the thrill of competition, and it can be a great introduction to competitive sports.” Much like the playoffs the week before, the Buff Puff was an impressive battle between PV’s juniors and seniors, with the seniors taking the win at the end, celebrating their second win in a row.

Kendal shares a perspective with many seniors this year, saying she “is so happy [she] got to participate in this sport with these people for 4 years,” and that “[t]his volleyball season had more competitiveness and drive that really influenced everyone.” Sports seasons are rarely perfect; the idea of having an unbroken streak of triumphs and successes sounds magical or impossible. Because of this, a good way to look at it all is to remember that the losses of the season come hand in hand with a celebration of the journey thus far, and we should still be “satisfied and happy with how [the] overall season went.”