Cal High will introduce beach volleyball as a varsity sport for the first time this upcoming spring season, providing a truly unique opportunity for the girls who join the squad.
Especially since there’s no beach in San Ramon.
Coach Brian Long, who coached Cal’s girls volleyball team for 15 years, said the success of indoor volleyball programs has contributed to the growing interest in beach volleyball.
“We felt that there has been more interest and increasing scholarship opportunities within colleges for students interested in beach volleyball,” said Long, who also teaches world geography and psychology.
The competition format will mirror college beach volleyball, with teams of two players competing in doubles matches.
The school will field six groups of two teams, but only the top three teams will get to compete against other schools. The rest of the teams will play exhibition matches and fill in whenever the first three teams are unable to compete.
Each contest consists of three matches. The goal is to win two out of three matches, and whoever does so wins the game.
While beach volleyball has been gaining traction, Cal faces more challenges due to a lack of dedicated sand courts and funding for the new program.
Senior varsity volleyball captain Sofia Bonifacio said the practices for beach volleyball will take place on the two sand volleyball courts located between Iron Horse Middle School and Central Park, which is only a few minutes drive from Cal.
“Commuting from Iron Horse which is kind of far away from Cal High for practice cannot be easy,” athletic director Chad Ross said.
The location of this practice court could be daunting for students as well.
“[They’re] not the greatest courts, I’d rather build courts here,” senior varsity volleyball captain Anne Yamada said. “I think the quality of the courts could be better.”
Because of these limitations, only a varsity team will be offered during the first season.
Despite the current challenges, there’s hope that additional courts could lead to the creation of JV and freshman teams in the future.
“If we can secure funding or build courts at Cal, we could eventually expand to multiple levels,” Long said.
The beach volleyball season will run from February to late April, aligning with the spring sports calendar. Most EBAL schools in the district will participate, with the exception of Dougherty Valley and Dublin high schools.
The launch of beach volleyball has sparked new interest in the school’s athletic program. Some enjoy watching it.
“It’s dope how they created beach volleyball, and it’ll be super super cool to see how students compete,” campus monitor Chris Tori said.
Others such as junior Nadia Fan, who plays on Cal’s varsity indoor volleyball team, looks forward to participating in the spring sport.
“I really enjoy playing indoor volleyball, and I used to play volleyball for like two years,” JV volleyball Nadia Fan says. “I am excited.”
Some players already have experience playing beach volleyball.
“I have been playing beach volleyball since my freshman year for my own club, so when I heard about Cal creating its own team, I was super excited,” Bonifacio said.
With this newly found hype surrounding the upcoming season, Long expresses his goals for the future of this sport.
“With support from the community, we hope to see this program grow and become a lasting part of our sports offerings,” Long said.