The high school girls volleyball team traveled to International School of Busan (ISB) on Oct. 17th for their first official match of the season. Busan Foreign School (BFS), ISB, Atherton International School (AIS), and Daegu International School (DIS) competed. After both wins and losses, both the varsity and junior varsity teams finished in third place.
The varsity girls started the day off with a tough defeat against BFS, last year’s champions. They lost both sets with a huge gap of 10-25 and 2-25. “I honestly feel like I tend to do really bad in the first game. Our communication was also not good. So it was hard for us to get the serves, especially because the servers were faster than what we were used to,” varsity co-captain Minori Kojima (9) said.
The crew successfully redeemed themselves with a win against AIS [2:0]. “I was able to get lots of hits on the right side and even on the outside. I was really proud of myself because normally I can’t do that but in this game I was able to do that really well,” all-star player Victoria Kang (10) said.
However, they encountered a setback in their next game against ISB. Still, both Mrs. Jolly and Mrs. Crewe commended the team’s performance in the game. “By the end of the day the girls played really well. It’s just like everything clipped and they all came together. Even though they lost against ISB they played great, so I was just really proud of the way that they played,” coach Mrs. Jolly said.
They played their final game of the tournament for 3rd place against AIS and claimed a smooth victory 25:13 and 25:17. “It was uneventful, honestly. I only played for the first set so that we could at least get one set and then we just let all the subs in. Obviously, the subs are really good too.So they just cleared them and it was an easy game,” Kojima said.
To start off, the JV girls faced ISB-3 in their first round-robin game. The Jets triumphed with a set score of 25:13 and 25:12. “ISB 3 was an easy game. And the name ISB 3 made us confident and we communicated a lot,” JV co-captain Dana Lee (23) said.
After a strong opening, the team went against ISB-2. The Jets took the first set with a tight score of 25:21. However, lack of communication and small mistakes led to an ultimate loss by 22:25 and 14:16. “When we won the first set of the ISB II game, we were so excited because we thought they were a strong team. But after set two, we were so nervous so we made a lot of mistakes, Lee said.
Without rest, the Jets matched up against the Sharks. Although they played neck to neck, holes in the defense gave BFS an advantage. They capitalized on the girls’ small mistakes and edged them out in the final moments of each set. “I think we could have won them. It was just a game of mentality,” JV captain Nayoung Kim (14) said.
Despite the disappointment, the players remained resilient and rallied in their final game. They secured a third place finish with another defeat of ISB 3.“It was a proud moment for the team. We won, literally effortlessly and it was a really chill game. So it was just a nice team bonding moment,” Kim said.
Due to the tight schedule, the varsity team played three games consecutively and the junior varsity played two in a row. “We had our second game against AIS then played against ISB, and played our final game against AIS for 3rd place. It was really tiring because a lot of our players had to play full-time. We were so tired that everyone was just wishing the games were over by the 3rd place match.” Kang said.
Still, the girls’ showed tremendous improvements throughout the season. Varsity setter Leewen Wang (1), right hitter Victoria Kang (10), and libero Lily Lee (4) won the all-star tournament award. “Lily is our libero, so she played all day long and she got on the floor and dug that ball. She really improved in her anticipation and receiving through the day, so I chose her as an all-star,” Mrs. Jolly said.
The team will participate in KISAC (Korean International School Activities Conference) from Oct. 25 to 26 to close off the season. “I hope we beat BFS and I’m looking forward to playing with NLCS because NLCS is one of the teams we are not very good with. I also want to thank Mrs. Jolly and Mrs. Crew for encouraging us and coaching us throughout the season”, Kang said.
