There were a lot of questions going into the 2022 Boys Varsity Volleyball Season at Palo Alto High School. A still relatively new team was faced with a floury of challenges; most noticeably the fact that they only had three seniors on a team with primarily new volleyball players. 

In a covid filled season with fans returning to the stands, tensions heightened, and availability of players constantly being up in the air, the Vikings Volleyball Team more than proved themselves. 

While having just fallen short for 1st place in League, the team still finished 14-2 over the season, ending the year on a seven game winning streak led by Senior Evan Passalaqua who walked away at the end of the season with league MVP. Junior Nathaniel Ibuyan stepped up and was selected to 1st team all league while Senior Owen Rice landed himself onto second team all league alongside Junior Calvin Wong. 

“We had a really good season,” Rice said. “I was really proud of the way the team really came together knowing that a lot of freshmen on the team stepped up.” 

Rice reflects on the best game in the season against Homestead explaining that it was the second game after losing to them before and that they had lost the two first sets. The Vikings came out on top in the third set and according to Rice, “It was a really fun game because the whole team really stepped up and was the highest level of performance I’d seen any of us play.” 

He saw a lot of potential in the underclassmen and is overall really excited for what’s to come for the future of boys volleyball at Paly.