LA JOLLA – The joy of the game: It sounds like a cliché, but Keigo Pilette confesses that that’s why he plays beach volleyball at University City High, along with the teamwork and competition.
His teammates echo his words.
Pilette, whose first name is pronounced “kay-go,” got into the sport as a sophomore a year ago, and loves it. “With my partner, Malcolm (Solt, also a junior), it’s cool how you work together.”
“There’s a lot of teamwork” in the two-person game, in which the pair split duties of serving, passing, and spiking, and on a sand surface which lends an outside environment while also testing an athlete’s ability to jump off a shifting surface.
Plus, it doesn’t hurt that the Centurion players have enjoyed a fair measure of success, with Coach Mark Salata building on what his mentor, Brooke Choi, constructed in both the boys and girls programs.
Seniors Jacob Brantuas, who plays on the “ones” pair, and Jake Goforth, on the “twos” (the top five pairs count for points in a match against another school), echo Keigo’s sentiments. Goforth, especially, harps on the fun of playing volleyball “in the sun and at the beach” in a conversation next to the outdoor nets at UCHS on a recent afternoon.
But don’t doubt that the latter Jake isn’t into the competitive aspect of the sport – he thrives on it. In a recent match (against an unnamed school that is just starting its beach program), Goforth and his partner, junior Anthony Bazalaki, smoked their opponents 21-0 and 21-2 – the first time Coach Salata told his team that UC had swept two matches in the same week, winning 5-0 over both opponents.
“(Beach volleyball) is super fun, then you can go in the water” if you’re playing at the beach, says Brantuas. His partner on the ones is fellow senior Jonan Merle.
There are difficult skills to master, and not everyone is riding a “high” all the time when games become difficult and losses start coming. “It’s hard to master the hand-eye coordination, and spiking the ball, making the ball curve downward,” Jacob says.
A relative low point came for the Cents when they lost to St. Augustine last fall in the third-place match in the playoffs – boys’ beach volleyball is still not sanctioned as a CIF sport, as it faces various factors in being certified.
“We all know we should have won,” says Goforth. The result: motivation to get better, resulting in eight-hour days “playing until the sun went down” some late afternoons to better and perfect their collective skills.
The veterans were also facing the challenge of several seniors graduating last year, and freshmen who had never played the sport coming in.
“Coach Mark invests a lot in the program,” Goforth notes, and University City enjoys a fabulous facility of courts right behind the gym in the center of the campus, where classmates and parents can conveniently attend matches.
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