Boys club team busts into volleyball role
By Rhett Workman
Contributing Writer
The success of the Valley’s homegrown volleyball program is fueling growth and interest in the sport that goes beyond just the girls.
A number of high school boys who were part of a rabid student section at Wildcat games last fall have taken their fandom to a whole new level. Under the Ridge Valley Volleyball club banner, they formed their own boys team.
Ridge Valley Volleyball, organized by Mount Si coach Bonnie Foote, already sports two girls teams in U-14 and U-16 divisions.
The boys, who are coached by Mount Si girls’ “C” team coach Callie Wesson, are getting good reviews from the local volleyball community.Wesson said she is excited about how things have gone in the first weeks of this season.
“These guys are just athletic kids,” Wesson said. “They have been able to pick up the stuff a lot quicker than some girls have, which is really exciting.”
Most of the boys are novices, but are learning fast.
“Starting off, this is the first time most of them are playing,” said assistant coach Matt Leicester, a 10-year men’s volleyball veteran. “So we’re basically teaching them the fundamentals.”
“They’re holding their own and they’re doing well,” Wesson said. “They set goals every tournament and they’ve been getting those.”
Player Tres Redemann, a Mount Si senior who has played football for the last nine years, said he is making some key discoveries about the sport.
“You have to be in exactly the right spot and have perfect footwork in order to get the ball to go where you want it to,” Redeman said.
This team is one of just a few youth boys teams in the entire region. Much of their competition thus far has been against adult men’s teams, some of which have players 55 or older. Leicester says this team has been well-received by the older men.
“All the guys were very happy that there was actually youth teams out there that were starting up,” he said.
Reaction around the school is mixed.
“Some people are like, ‘Oh you’ve got to be joking me. Volleyball, that’s a girls sport,’” said player Ryan Olson, a Mount Si sophomore who was team photographer for the Wildcat girls’ volleyball team last fall at the state tournament.
‘”Then other guys will go, ‘No, that’s really sweet,’” he added.
There is hope down the road for possible expansion of this club; Wesson said the team may invite interested players from Issaquah, Skyline and Eastlake with an eye on a possible second team. Those incremental steps could one day help lead to possibly making high school boys’ volleyball a reality in Washington.
“Someday it will be a guys’ high school sport in the state of Washington.” Olson said. “There’s enough guys that would be interested in playing it; it’s just a matter of schools saying, ‘Do you want it or not?’”
“The more teams, the more kids we have involved, then pretty soon we can make it more popular,” Wesson said.
Leicester said player need community support.
“Come out and see them sometime,” he said. The Ridge Valley boys team’s next tournament is at the end of March. More information on the club is available at their Web site, www.ridgevalley.org.
