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This year will be the third year that boys’ volleyball can be found at NS. Since it has not been sanctioned by the UHSAA quite yet, Austin Ison took it upon himself to start a club team two years ago.
One of the main reasons boys club volleyball started at NS was because Conner Jorgensen and Trevor Cook showed an interest in playing, and Coach Ison wanted to get it started as well.
“I always wanted to play when I was in high school, but didn’t get the chance,” said head coach Ison, who saw it as an opportunity for the boys to play something new. The club is called Central Utah Elite.
“We play in a league every Tuesday starting in March,” said Ison, “Those games will continue until the first week of May.”
Not all games will be in Orem; last year NS hosted four home games, and this year the team hopes to increase that number.
This coming season, the team has gained a few new players, including Adam Ferre, John Lolesio, and David LaTomme.
However, with gain comes some loss, and some players held back this year, possibly because volleyball can be expensive.
“We accepted everybody because we’re trying to get two teams,” said Zach Allred, middle blocker who doubles as a right-side.
The tryouts went well, and they didn’t have to cut anyone.
Unfortunately, “passing and serving is not one of the team’s strengths,” said Ison. They believe this will certainly improve with time. They have some “really good passers” according to Ison.
On the upside, the team is doing really well with their hitting and blocking, and they’re really good at competing.
“Even at practice, they’re very competitive, like against each other,” said Ison, “They push each other.”
Being competitive brought the team to number one in the league for three weeks last season. However, that same season had some ups and downs too. The team “didn’t do too well, but did okay,” according to Allred.
As for the first season, (two years ago) it went well. They placed top ten in the state tournament.
Even though boys volleyball has had great success at NS, the people of Utah still have yet to sanction boys volleyball and turn it into an official high school sport.
The team has high hopes that this year is the one, and by next year, it will be sanctioned.
“That’d be awesome,” said Allred.
The vote will be counted on March 18, and we will finally see if this year is the year that boys’ volleyball will finally be sanctioned.
