SLAS Times Q2 2019-2020 SLAS Times: Fall 2019 | Page 24

All About the 2019 SLAS Volleyball Team
by Kyle Gumangan
T
he Wildcats are getting ready for the champion- “As a team, we have been going to practices almost
ships by recruiting new players for the 2019 sea- every day. Some of us don’t get to come every day to
son that started on September 3.
practice because they have after school and AP tutor-
ing. Since there are a lot of new players this year, we
Both boys’ and girls’ teams competed against and need a lot of practice.”
beat YCIS in their first game on Sept. 3. After winning,
they kept practicing and remained humble, knowing Jannah Angeles, said, “The volley-
that their future competitors will be much stronger ball season started during the first
than before.
week of school and I think it will
end on the second week of Octo-
The boys’ team consists of, Nikolay Mesropyan, Ken ber. We’ve only had three games at
Higashiyama, Tom Domyo, Carl Wasing, Eric Park, An- the moment, and we’ve only won
drew Park, Maxon Jin, Kimoni Bridges, Nikita Kirzyk, against YCIS. It was a tough game
Elijah Chin Sah, Sam Afshazard, Jeric Pamintuan, Oli- with SCIS last Monday, but I’m still
ver Ribo, Harry Koo, and Niall Lee. The team captains proud of how my team members did their best to
are Tsering Jordhen and Dusan Marinkovic. Mr. Ruairi win. I believe that the girls’ volleyball team has the
Hickey is the coach.
potential to win more games than last year, all we
need to focus on is teamwork.”
The girls’ team consists of Hana Kiyota, Ruruka Kane-
sashi, Abby Chang, Sarah Higashiyama, Sarita Mer- Tsering Jordhen, another captain,
cedes, Inbee Park, Aileen Park, Rita Yuk, Martina Bar- said, “It seems like most people are
ona, Nane Mesropyan, Sae Kadowaki, Gia Khiatani, not very tough, but when our team
and Intisar Alkhatib. Their captains are Mikaela Jane plays the first round everyone is un-
Cordero and Jannah Karyl Angeles. Ms. Kelli Lair and comfortable, which often makes us
Ms. Samantha Shamoon are the coaches.
perform sub-par. My guess, though,
is that SAS will be very challenging,
Most of these athletes considered joining the team and that hinges on whether we make it to the tourna-
because they just wanted to take extracurricular ment or not. When we’re on the benches, me and my
activities for their college application. During after classmates yell and clap our hearts out cheering on
school practices, these teams play against each oth- the players on the court.”
er and through the process, they learn new skills and
fix their flaws.
Ms. Kelli Lair responded about the new season say-
ing, “I am looking to see improvement. The girls es-
Dusan Marinkovic, the boys’ cap-
pecially have a lot of new players, but we also have
tain, said, “We are practicing as
all but one of our players from last year, so I want to
much as we can and we try our
see improvement from the girls from last year, be-
best to improve after every game;
cause they didn’t do so hot.”
individually and as a team.”
Coach Ruairi Hickey expects his team “to win the
western division.”
On the girls’ team, Mikaela Jane
Cordero, one of the captains, said,