Men’s volleyball team crushes Capital Christian in first home game

By Krystal Lau,
Bluedevilhub.com Staff–

In its first home game of the season, the Davis High men’s volleyball team beat Capital Christian 25-19, 25-13, 25-20 on Thursday, March 5. A strong start, with six returning senior volleyball players, the season looks to be a promising one.

One of their first wins in three sets, the game marks a key turning point in the strength of the team. Contributing to this success has been key players Sam Bailey, Nick Simmons, Milton Hong, Eugene Long and Dominic Fanjiang, according to senior captain Evan Meerscheidt. For Bailey, who is playing his first full season on varsity this year, his breakout performance was a highlight of the night.

“Sam really built on all the improvements he made last year,” Meerscheidt said.

Strategically, coach Jordan Friend has been relying on capitalizing free balls and tips, and running a fast offense. Friend has particularly focused on serving, and he hopes to use the strategy tested in today’s match for future games.

“Towards the end of the third set we really took them out with our serve,” Friend said. “Going into this game we wanted to serve tough and short and that’s going to be a big part of our strategy this year.”

Learning strategy from this game has not been the only success of the night. According to Meerscheidt, the confidence boost has significantly lifted the morale of the team.

“It’s nice to establish the cage. It’s a real fortress for us, letting teams know that they can’t come in here; they can’t push us around,” Meerscheidt said. “I think this team’s going to go places this year.”

Although anxious at the onset of the game, Meerscheidt’s nerves did not affect his play, as Friend attributes the strong offense to his leadership. However, Meerscheidt believes his nerves actually heighten his playing technique.

“I think no matter who you’re playing you got to be nervous. Volleyball’s a game where you control the things on your side of the court and you don’t really worry about who’s on the other side. You have to play the same way no matter who it is,” Meerscheidt said.

For the DHS men’s volleyball team, this year could be the big year. With a high proportion of senior boys who have been involved in volleyball since sophomore year, and several strong underclassmen players, Friend has high expectations for the team.

“I think they’re a good team and a good squad… The team has a lot of camaraderie,” Friend said. “If they play their best against the other teams and take it a game at a time we’ll make it to playoffs.”

Meerscheidt echoes this sentiment.

“This is the year for us to finally win a playoff game. We haven’t won it the past two years I’ve been here in the program,” Meerscheidt said. “I think this team’s going to come together.”

In order to reach this goal, the volleyball program needs funding. Last year the volleyball program was able to create a JV team, and today the program only continues to grow. To foster this expansion, the team is selling 40 boxes of cookie dough, which cost 16 dollars each. With fundraising and a growing team, Meerscheidt holds high hopes for the future.

“To fund the growing program we have to start fundraising, we have to establish ourselves as a presence in the community as something that people would want to come out to on a Tuesday night, Wednesday night, even a Friday night,” Meerscheidt said.