Samo Girls’ beach volleyball set for comback season
Koi Lerner / The Samohi
Michelle Li (‘27) begins to serve to the duo on the other side of the net during girls beach volleyballs daily practice.
The Samo girls’ beach volleyball team has kicked off the season 1-0 with a 5-0 win against Beverly Hills. After failing to qualify for CIF playoffs last season, the team is back for redemption.
Beach volleyball, unlike normal volleyball, is played in pairs instead of the usual six players. The games are also played outside on the sand, exposed to all elements. Liane Sato, the girls’ beach volleyball coach, discusses the differences between indoor and outdoor volleyball.
“You have to deal with the elements [while playing beach volleyball],” Sato said. “The sand, the sun, the wind, the different types of sands, some of it is deep, some of it is not very deep. Another difference is you have to have all of the skills, you have to be able to pass that hit, since there’s only two people on the court.”
In the Bay League, the girls play against teams like Mira Costa, Redondo and Palos Verdes- some of the top beach volleyball teams in the state of California. Last year, the teams had a new format- a combination of regular league season and league playoffs, where the teams competed for qualifications for CIF playoffs. Last season, Samo lost in the third round of league playoffs, eliminating them from CIF contention.
The team has grown to 33 players in the last three years, many of which are student athletes either in normal girls’ volleyball or in other sports. Sato highlights some players to look out for in this season.
“We’ve gotten a lot better,” Sato said. “This year we have a lot of new girls, incoming freshmen, who are new to the game, but they’ve been picking it up really quickly in the last couple weeks. We have some really great players. We have Jasmine Martinez, who is a returning player, [and] Ariana Ballard. We also have another developing player Layla Gafari and some other girls who are returning, who have gotten better.”
In addition to being its own sport this season, Sato believes that beach volleyball can also aid her athletes in improving their abilities in indoor volleyball.
“[Beach volleyball] is the neutralizer,” Sato said. “You don’t need to be super big and tall, although it helps. You have to have skills, you have good ball control, you can hit it, whether or not you can dictate where you want the ball to go. It really helps your indoor game, where you can learn all of the skills and work on the skills that you need improvement on.”
Jasmine Martinez (’26), a player in beach volleyball, discusses the team’s main focus for the current season.
“The goal is to improve our skills,” Martinez said. “Each individual skill, because in beach volleyball, you have to know how to do every skill. It’s really just skill improvement. [We’ve improved] by pushing each other to do our best in every practice and really focusing on what we’re doing and trying to have that kind of mindset to improve.”