{"id":319513,"date":"2025-10-20T21:26:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T21:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/319513\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T21:26:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T21:26:12","slug":"uchs-boys-beach-volleyball-for-the-joy-of-the-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/319513\/","title":{"rendered":"UCHS boys beach volleyball \u2013 for the joy of the game"},"content":{"rendered":"

LA JOLLA \u2013 The joy of the game: It sounds like a clich\u00e9, but Keigo Pilette confesses that that\u2019s why he plays beach volleyball at University City High<\/a>, along with the teamwork and competition. <\/p>\n

His teammates echo his words.<\/p>\n

Pilette, whose first name is pronounced \u201ckay-go,\u201d got into the sport as a sophomore a year ago, and loves it. \u201cWith my partner, Malcolm (Solt, also a junior), it\u2019s cool how you work together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of teamwork\u201d 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\u2019s ability to jump off a shifting surface.<\/p>\n

Plus, it doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

Seniors Jacob Brantuas, who plays on the \u201cones\u201d pair, and Jake Goforth, on the \u201ctwos\u201d (the top five pairs count for points in a match against another school), echo Keigo\u2019s sentiments. Goforth, especially, harps on the fun of playing volleyball \u201cin the sun and at the beach\u201d in a conversation next to the outdoor nets at UCHS on a recent afternoon.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t doubt that the latter Jake isn\u2019t into the competitive aspect of the sport \u2013 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 \u2013 the first time Coach Salata told his team that UC had swept two matches in the same week, winning 5-0 over both opponents.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Beach volleyball) is super fun, then you can go in the water\u201d if you\u2019re playing at the beach, says Brantuas. His partner on the ones is fellow senior Jonan Merle.<\/p>\n

There are difficult skills to master, and not everyone is riding a \u201chigh\u201d all the time when games become difficult and losses start coming. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to master the hand-eye coordination, and spiking the ball, making the ball curve downward,\u201d Jacob says.<\/p>\n

A relative low point came for the Cents when they lost to St. Augustine last fall in the third-place match in the playoffs \u2013 boys\u2019 beach volleyball is still not sanctioned as a CIF sport, as it faces various factors in being certified.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know we should have won,\u201d says Goforth. The result: motivation to get better, resulting in eight-hour days \u201cplaying until the sun went down\u201d some late afternoons to better and perfect their collective skills.<\/p>\n

The veterans were also facing the challenge of several seniors graduating last year, and freshmen who had never played the sport coming in. <\/p>\n

\u201cCoach Mark invests a lot in the program,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

READ NEXT\n\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LA JOLLA \u2013 The joy of the game: It sounds like a clich\u00e9, but Keigo Pilette confesses that…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":319514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,144149,160274,1582,276,10505,3102,3548,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,160275,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-319513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-beach-volleyball","10":"tag-boys-beach-volleyball","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-exclude-homepage","14":"tag-high-school-sports","15":"tag-la-jolla","16":"tag-san-diego","17":"tag-sandiego","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-university-city-high","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115408613807015410","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}