By Ariana Rathan
On Friday, the boys’ volleyball team fought hard against Los Alamitos High School Griffins but lost to a close game, 2-3.
The Barons won sets one and four, while Los Alamitos won sets two and three. The Barons played their best up until the end of the game, where the last points were scored by Griffins during the fifth set, losing 13-15.
Throughout the first set, the Barons slammed down the ball onto Los Alamitos. Fierce and unforgiving down balls hit by seniors Kailer Wesley and Anton Pham and junior Josh Dang won the Barons the majority of their points.
The first set consisted of short plays that were simple bump-set spikes and whoever couldn’t return the spike would lose the point.
The Barons started off strong at the beginning of the second set but struggled throughout. They had a hard time returning the aggressive blocks and returns from Los Alamitos. The team ran to keep the ball off of the floor but would miss it by inches. Despite their attempts to reach the ball and good teamwork, Los Alamitos’ returns cost the Barons a win.
During the third set, the Barons lost a majority of their points spikes from Los Alamitos and missed serves. Even though they lost, senior Trey Parazzo leaped to the floor and saved the ball with the help of his teammates.
By the fourth set, the Barons were not ready to lose and kept on the fight. The Fountain Valley crowd roared with encouragements and cheers and inspired by the energy of the crowd, and their teammates, the Barons defeated Los Alamitos once more. During this game, each players’ strengths were highlighted and used.
Whether it was their high vertical, the exciting rallies, or the intensity of the game, the Barons executed set four and smacked down the ball on Los Alamitos, time and time again.
The fifth and final set was the game that brought everything together. This fight was a hard one, coming from both sides. When Los all would score, the barons fought to win back the points they had lost. It was a back and forth rally and the barons played well and fought hard, but lost by two points to the Griffins.
By the fifth and final set, everyone in the gym was on edge. The Barons and Griffins went back and forth over and over again. When one team would score, the other team would score immediately after. This repeated over and over again until finally, Los Alamitos scored the final point against the Barons.
“As a team, we played amazing and overall it was a great game, today overall it was the best but what we need to work on is our consistency”, senior Anton Pham said.
Throughout the game, the Barons showed their strengths as well as their weaknesses, but are determined to work on them and continue to improve as a team and as individual players.
“I think our teams’ energy was really good this game, we had a lot of good plays but we missed a lot less serves than usual and that was one of our major problems”, sophomore Curtis Harper said.
Despite the loss, the Barons came out stronger and are ready to face their next opponents.
