This Boys Volleyball team has concluded the regular season a record of 14-6, winning their league and qualifying for the State tournament, while securing the best season in team history. So far, the team has succeeded in three of their goals, with their chance of winning States coming soon. Coach Daniel Jurkowski feels “extremely proud of the work” the volleyball team has put in to “get to this point”, especially “the seniors.”
Qualifying for States is not just a big deal because they play against several other talented teams, but because it was also their very first year qualifying, which is “the most memorable” moment of the season, according to sophomore Jason Chan. Winning the league was definitely a positive, however States is “worth so much more than being league champs.” In regards to preparing for States, junior Gabriel Madeira says that the team is preparing by “motivating each other” and “by helping each other better work together.” The team “trained hard” and “put in the work to play well as a team” when it came to each game.
Senior Kamal Moussa says that the team is also practicing with specific drills that target their “weak spots.” He says that the team has “accomplished a lot of firsts” and that the team grows “more hungry” by the day to win States. He adds that they “could not be happier with [their] accomplishments as a team.” Junior Ryoma Yonetani says that feels “glad and satisfied” for winning the league, since it is a “big achievement for the program.”
In order to achieve their goals, the team acknowledged that they had to improve on many aspects to succeed. According to Madeira, the team improved immensely on “communication and working together”, which gave them a chance to “better with [their] serves.” The team also focused on improving their individual skills. Madeira says that he has improved on his serves and passes, a contrast from the beginning of the season when he “barely knew how to play.” He says that by the end of the season, he “learned to play better” and “learned to serve the ball more efficiently.”
According to Moussa, the team is “constantly improving [their] individual and team skill” so they can “take on any challenge that comes our way.” One example is passing and positioning, in which he says that he has “improved greatly” on, along with overall volleyball knowledge. Moussa says that the one aspect that still needs work on is “overcoming of mental barriers”, since negative energies “gets to [them] too much”, admitting that the team tends to “mentally crumble before the game is done” sometimes. Yonetani says that his passes for the hitters are “getting better and consistent”, due to his position as a setter. He feels that he is “more aware” of what he “provide[s] as setter”, in which “affects the performance of the hitters.”
Chan believes that it is critical to improve on “everything” for States or “[they] will see an early exit to our first tournament.” Chan considers himself an “inexperienced player” since he joined the team in the middle of the season. He was compelled to switch from Crew to Boys Volleyball after he watched a home game, in which the team won. He recalls how one of the players saw him on the court after the game blocking and immediately went to Coach Jurkowski, telling him that Chan was interested to play volleyball. “A few days later [he] was attending practice with the team without any knowledge of the sport,” Chan remembers. Although he had “minimal play time” since he was still new to the game, he began to learn more with “the help of the team and the captains”, helping him to improve “slowly but surely.”
Although the team trained to minimize challenges in each game, there were two games that proved to be much difficult than anticipated, which was the match again Greater Lowell and Randolph. Moussa says that Greater Lowell “[brought] a lot of skill to the table”, which made the game challenging. Chan says that the volleyball team in Randolph were “in sync” and made little to no errors in the game. The members of the team “[knew] what was going on” and the difficulties led Malden High to lose the match in the both times they played against them.
Despite the obstacles, the team also had their high point, aside from qualifying for States. Madeira says that he feels that the best moment of the season was their game against Somerville, where the match ended up to five sets. The team managed to “pull it together in the end” and won “a tough match.” Yonetani sides with home game against Essex Tech as the best moment.
Getting better is not exclusive to the players on the court. Coach Jurkowski aspires to ”improve every day” as a coach. He feels that him and the teammates :learn from each other and give positive feedback” and also possess “the same goals.” He says that the further the team gets into the season, the more he gets to know each member of the team, which helps him coach them because “not every kid responds to the same method of teaching.” He feels that he has “great relationship with the boys”, and is excited to see “how far [they] can go this season.”
A member of the team that Coach Jurkowski feels had not just a spectacular season, but a wonderful three years with Malden High’s Boys Volleyball team is senior captain Arthur Kossoski. He says that after experiencing “back to back losing seasons”, Jurkowski “could not be happier” for Kossoski to be with his teammates for States in his final season.
