One of our biggest fall sports here at Pleasant Valley is volleyball and it has the whole school watching. Volleyball is a high energy, fast paced game that has everyone on their toes. As people watch the teams in our school’s Varley Gym, it is lively. The gym fills with the cheers of the crowd and of the teams. Volleyball starts right as school begins making the season preparation having to start in the summertime. It starts off in early August with a week-long tryout that tests the abilities of players in order to make it on the team. Once the girls make it on the team they have to play in over 35+ games, ten of which are at home. Saying that these girls are tough is an understatement.
As the players show the power and effort that they bring to the court, the crowd can’t help but cheer for them. Kayla Tong knows this better than anyone else. Kayla, who is a Sophomore in high school on the JV team for PV and was on the Frosh team last year says that she has learned a lot. One thing that has stuck out to her more than the others is, “Volleyball has taught me the importance of striving for a goal. Since it is such a competitive sport, especially at PV, I learned that I have to take my skill and training for myself and go beyond what other players do. Talk, focus, and flush (in volleyball we say we have to forget the bad plays and move onto the next one). Practice and coach ability exceeds talent”. Kayla has held her goal of getting and striving to move forward with her from the jump to Frosh to JV which she says has been, “Daunting, because the next level is varsity. It gives you more opportunity to showcase your talent, especially since the student section grows a little and the varsity coach watches you play a lot more, although that puts on a lot of pressure. So if you want to jump from frosh to JV, you need to expect and learn how to cope with stressful situations. To turn the stress into competitive fun”.
As Kayla mentioned, the student section grows from a little at frosh games, barely fitting 25 people (Who consist mostly of family members)into the small gym. To have about 45 in the big gym, now with family and the student body. To Varsity which has a full student section. The big thing about any sports games (but especially our fall sports) are the amazing themes by Stugo. Some of the volleyball game themes have been: USA, (Put the other volleyball themes find posters at school). Having these spirit filled student sections really brings it together. Lylah Lee who is a non-volleyball player but a member of the student section says that she loves many different things about the student section but there is one thing that stands out to her the most: “I like hanging out with friends as we cheer on our friends playing, as well as showing how hype we are.” A tremendous part of our student section is our cheers. Lylah’s favorite one is the Viking Chant, where you spell out Vikings. Some other chants are: Rollercoaster, Drum Clap, and Viking Party. As mentioned earlier, our themes are a big thing that brings the student body together. Lylah’s favorite themes that she has participated in at the games are: jerseys and minions. The section of our student body in our gym really provides that energy for our girls.
A thing that a lot of the girls on the team are on is year round teams, or spring and summer teams when they are not competing for PV. There are three local club teams here in Chico: Matrix, Uptempo, and Butte Alite. One of the players on the JV team is Kasey Baughman, who is a high school sophomore. Kasey has been playing on Matrix since 2023 and has traveled all over California going to different tournaments. She says the club volleyball has helped her a lot to get into JV, ¨Playing club helped me to improve my skills and taught me how to play the sport competitively.” As well as helping her get into JV, her club team has helped her a lot in other ways too, ¨The biggest thing I’ve learned is communicating with others and working in a team setting¨. These are the two biggest things that really elevate the volleyball teams here at PV. The teams here at PV are some of the best in Northern California. The amazing effort and power these girls put into every single time is outstanding. Their strength shows wherever they go, the games they play in, the ones at home and out of town. The jump to Frosh, JV, and Varsity tests these abilities but each girl powers through. The encouragement and spirit from the students here at PV supporting each game makes our gym lively. Don’t forget the local teams that give the girls the skills and ability to move up level to level and compete their best in each game.
