“Undefeated League Champs!”
Hugging and high-fiving, the victorious Vaqueros shouted its newly won title into the echoey gym just seconds after claiming its last regular season win at Mount Miguel on May 4, which they took in three sets.
“Undefeated League Champs!”
Hugging and high-fiving, the victorious Vaqueros shouted its newly won title into the echoey gym just seconds after claiming its last regular season win at Mount Miguel on May 4, which they took in three sets.
For the Vaqueros of El Capitan High School, the win has a special significance. El Cap’s boys volleyball program has been in rebuilding mode for a while, but this win might have just cemented its standing as the One To Beat.
“Our school’s never done it (gone undefeated),” said Head Coach Jason Cavazos. “Our school had never won a league championship till last year and now we’ve won back-to-back, and to be undefeated is a really cool thing.”
The Vaqueros are a patchwork program of second-hand athletes mostly recruited from basketball, football and soccer programs at the school. Cavazos said, once they learned how to play volleyball, having such great athletes on the team was an advantage.
“This team, they all have pieces and they all do their roles on the team so they really have created an actual team atmosphere,” he said. “I knew we would be decent if the athletes could become athletes and they were able to do so, so it worked out great.”
Cavazos, who is also El Cap’s basketball coach, has dedicated five years towards rebuilding El Cap’s volleyball program. The fruit is beginning to show.
El Capitan is 18-6 for the season. They are the highest ranked team in Division III.
Vaquero Sergio Munoz said he expected the team to do well.
“We’re a unit,” he said. “We’ve been working hard all season.”
Munoz is one of the team standouts, according to Cavazos.
“He covers the whole back row and he can really pass the ball,” said Cavazos of the Vaquero junior.
Team Captain Dylan Curtis, the team’s only club volleyball player, said they have been improving all year, not just individually but as a team.
“I think we had some strong players last year, but as a team we’re getting good,” said Curtis. “We’re getting better upfront and our passing is outstanding. That’s what makes us good is our passing.”
Going undefeated may have come as a surprise, but Curtis said the team deserved to win league.
“We put in a lot of work this year, we definitely deserve it,” he said. “I think we worked hard, every game we tried to execute. At the beginning of the year I expected us to compete for league. I didn’t know if we were going to win it outright, undefeated. I just can’t wait to see what we do in the playoffs.”
Last year, El Cap lost to Castle Park in the second round. The Trojans went on to win the CIF title. This year, Castle Park is seeded third and El Cap is sitting in eighth.
Curtis said the Vaqueros are getting ready for the stiffer competition of playoffs. Work ethic, said Curtis, has contributed most to the team’s success so far.
“Especially with players who have never played volleyball before, they picked it up so strongly,” he said. “The first day after practice we were just in the in gym to work hard. After winning that first tournament we were setting our sights for league and now we’re setting our sights for CIF.”
