By Jayden Nguyen
The score is tied 13-13. The Barons serve the ball, and the Argonauts return it. The crowd turns their heads back and forth, nervously anticipating to see which team will score and break the tie. Junior Billy Watkins jumps and spikes the ball, scoring for the Barons.
“Billy Watkins gets the kill,” the announcer said.
Those five words ring through the gym and capture the ongoing energy that continues for the rest of the set. The Barons would go on to win 25-19 in the second set.
The Fountain Valley High School boys’ volleyball team (8-1) fought against the Garden Grove High School Argonauts (3-5) on Monday and defeated them with a 3-0 victory, marking the tone for the first of three games this week and extending their winning streak to three matches.
“I think it’s a good omen for the other games we have this week,” head coach Becca Cheltenham.
Key offensive players were Watkins and sophomore Peter Pham scoring with their relentless spikes. Defensively, libero junior Arion Wang saved the ball many times with his courageous dives to continue the play.
In the first set, Fountain Valley started strong, dominating the court with Watkins’s feinting attacks on which Pham could capitalize. Sophomore Kayden Tran paired up with Wang to save the ball many times and set up the Barons’ offense to pierce through the Argonauts’ defense.
Senior Kyle Prum served many times in this set and caused the Garden Grove defense to crumble, scoring many points off of the break. The Barons’ defense proved to be too structurally sound for the Argonauts to penetrate. The first set represented a strong start for the Barons, who won with a score of 25-15.
The second set started similarly, with the Barons starting with a strong lead of 8-3. Watkins found many openings in Garden Grove’s defense by scoring many points with spikes.
To counter, the Argonauts capitalized on the Barons (capitalize on the Baron’s what, like what they did capitalize on) to score a few points of their own, closing the gap to 11-7. The two teams traded points for a few plays, but the Argonauts found a gust of motivation and started scoring on the Barons to tie the game at 13-13. At a standstill, the Argonauts served, but Watkins smashed the ball down to pull Fountain Valley ahead.
Both teams fought hard but the Barons stayed ahead of the Argonauts for the following few sets. With the score at 24-19, the Argonauts called a timeout.
Returning from the break, Prum served the ball and on a returned hit. Tran spiked the ball to end the second set at 25-19, bringing Fountain Valley to a 2-0 set lead.
The third set saw the Barons display their relentless attacks. Watkins and Pham continued to shower the Argonauts with powerful spikes. Wang served many times acing to pull the Barons to a commanding score to 12-1 lead, forcing Garden Grove to call another timeout.
Coming back with newly found motivation, the Argonauts scored points to catch up to the Barons and bring the score to 15-5. Following this short comeback, Fountain Valley continued their rampant attacks, ending with Tran smashing the ball to score a point and extending the set’s score to 21-8.
The Argonauts called another timeout and seemed to regain their offensive momentum, scoring twice for a total of 10 points in the set. However, the Barons’ early lead proved to be too much, ending with Pham spiking the ball to land the last point and ending the set 25-13. The game concluded with Fountain Valley sweeping the sets, winning 3-0.
Fountain Valley will start the week strong with two more games later this week, but Cheltenham isn’t concerned about the team’s fatigue.
“If we didn’t have a game today we would go hard in practice … six to seven days we go hard during practice so stamina isn’t an issue,” Cheltenham said.
The next boys’ volleyball game is at home on Wednesday at 4:45 p.m. against Godinez High School.
