From Setbacks To Championships | Issue 2023

When the 2019 boys’ volleyball season ended, VCHS coach Moni Tautu started anticipating future championships.
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It was one of the best seasons the Warriors had ever had in the sport – they had made it to the CCS championship game before losing and then advanced to the NorCal semifinals, where their season ended. But practically every key player was an underclassman. 2020 was going to be their year.

You can include boys’ volleyball among the things stolen from high schoolers in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Gone was what Tautu believed would be the best season in the history of the VCHS program.

And then, three years later, everything came together again. Senior Michael Shi had been a freshman on the 2020 team that never had a chance to play. He was joined in 2023 by his younger brother, Harry, who will be a senior on the 2024 team. They were surrounded on the court by talented athletes who were used to playing together. It felt like all the pieces were in place once more.

“I have never had a team like I had last year,” says Tautu, reflecting on the 2023 season a few months after it ended.

A significant reason for that sentiment is that the team accomplished what no other boys’ volleyball team ever had, not even the 2019 group. In May, the Warriors won the program’s first CCS championship, powering through the bracket as the third seed to defeat Archbishop Mitty in the semifinals and St. Francis in the championship, avenging regular-season losses to both schools. Then, just like four years ago, they made it to the NorCal semifinals before bowing out.

So, it makes sense why Tautu is so excited about the 2024 season; as it was in 2020, nearly the entire group of key contributors returns. They are a year older, a year stronger, and a year hungrier for more history.

One of the returners is senior Tyler Alden, a star outside hitter who jumps out of the gym to set up his thunderous spikes.

“’Do you know how good you are?’” Tautu remembers asking Alden during practices before the 2023 season. “’You are a good player, but do you know how much better you can be?’”

Alden and his teammates realize that they are aiming for a CCS repeat and their first-ever NorCal championship.

“I never would’ve thought, as a freshman, that we’d be this successful,” Alden says. “There have been teams that are technically better than us, but our attitudes fit so well, and we have special chemistry – it’s crazy how much of a difference that can make.”

With the way the boys’ volleyball schedule is set up, most of the college recruiting occurs during the club circuit that lasts through the winter, meaning that by the time the high school season rolls around in the spring, seniors have made their college commitments and can focus single-mindedly on playing with their high school teammates.

That likely means more emotional moments like the end of last season when Michael Shi tearfully hugged his little brother Harry in the locker room after the Clovis loss.

“I’m not crying because we lost,” Michael said to his teammates. “I’m crying because it’s over!”

It’s not quite over yet, for Harry and the rest of the returning players. Though the memory of the what-could-have-been 2020 season remains fresh in her mind, Tautu is optimistic that, outside of a global pandemic, few issues can derail her current squad.

“We’ve had all kinds of weird spiritual warfare moments over the last year or so,” she says. “Guys’ cars breaking down on their way to games, things like that. But with all of these obstacles we keep overcoming, we can’t help but think that something special must be on the horizon.”

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