All photos taken by Daniel O'Toole and Jessica Li.
The Boys Volleyball team opened their season at home against the Everett Crimson Tide. The first set started off shaky, but the boys managed to shake off the rust and come back to win the set 26-24.
"So we had a lot of new guys playing and that was their first set of real varsity volleyball. We had a couple scrimmages that helps with their confidence and getting playing experience. But, you never know until the real games start with real refs and a big crowd watching. So, even some of our returning guys felt the moment was too big at the beginning, they were a little too excited, a little too much adrenaline. But, once we settle in and play Malden volleyball everyone got comfortable, we played well the last two sets," reflected Head Coach Daniel Jurkowski.
LEFT TO RIGHT: Senior Kyle Lee passes the ball; Senior Aiden Tham sets for junior Adin Chen; senior Kevin Lin and junior Victor DeSouza rise to block Everett's ball.
During their second set the Golden Tornados found themselves in a 1-5 hole early, but great defensive play helped them lead 10-7. Everett would pick up the pace and match Malden for a score of 18-17, but they ultimately slowed down and got shut out for the rest of the set and fell behind 2-0 in the game.
Malden started off strong with senior Kevin Lin, junior Victor DeSouza, and sophomore Edward Mei dominating with their blocking to put Malden up 5-1. A massive rejection from junior Kauan Da Silva helped Malden keep up there dominant with DeSouza locking down serving from 6-3 all the way until the score was 11-4. Sophomore Kenton Nguyen subed into the game for his first varsity time of the season and immediately set junior Adin Chen for a spike to force a timeout and place Malden up 14-4. Alert plays by Lin got Malden out of some tough situations which ultimately helped Malden win the set 25-14 and sweeping the game 3-0.
"We had a lot of new guys playing and that was their first set of real varsity volleyball. We had a couple scrimmages that helps with their confidence and getting playing experience. But, you never know until the real games start with real refs and a big crowd watching. So, even some of our returning guys felt the moment was too big at the beginning, they were a little too excited, a little too much adrenaline. But, once we settle in and play Malden volleyball everyone got comfortable, we played well the last two sets," Jurkowski remarked.
Lin echoed this sentiment, saying "I think we started out slow; there was a lot of nerves running around. [For] a lot of the players, [it] was the first time playing. Other than that, I feel like we picked it up by the third set and we showed them who Malden Volleyball really is... I think our first set, everyone was just nervous, everyone was shaking. Like, we couldn't get the ball to the setter. The setter was just running around. We just looked really, really bad. But, other than that, we just picked it up, and we then made our serves; we got our passes; our hits started going in--everything just went well."
One of those moving up to varsity, and a prominent player in this game, was easily Adin Chen. He commented, "it's a lot of adrenaline at first because it's our first game... We have a lot of juniors this year, so we just had to get into our groove and just calm down a bit."
LEFT TO RIGHT: Sophomore Kenton Nguyen, senior Timothy Du, and juniors Kauan Da Silva and Gil Lawson celebrate a good play; the team celebrates their win after a thrilling third set.
"It's important to win yet another GBL title not only to continue the legacy set by our seniors previously but also to show an example to Massachusetts volleyball knowing that we are on of the newer programs. We have to show these guys that we're not just some rookies on the block," said DeSouza.
"I think it was a lesson, like, we definitely learned from it. And I think it's gonna work. I think by the end of the season, we'll be fine," Lin continued.
Jurkowski concluded, "Our first set today taught us for sure that we can't get off to slow starts. We got to come out ready to play right away because even though it's a newer program, they had some kids that can swim and play volleyball. We can't come out thinking that we're going to be better than everybody we have to come out like every single time that we're on the floor we have to play our best. So I think today will be a good experience for us as our first game, letting us get some nerves out of the way, and hopefully going forward we'll be okay."
