Stellar Senior Volleyball Performances at Cities

JESSICA KWONG

After numerous hard-fought games against teams from across the district, Hamber’s senior volleyball season has come to an end. Playoffs decide the official ranking of teams in Vancouver, and both senior girls and boys teams placed within the top ten. 

The Nest spoke to Senior Girls’ Volleyball’s Jamie Jung (12) and Senior Boys’ Volleyball’s Michael Lee (11) about their respective teams' performance at Cities this year. The Senior Boys came in second in the tournament. Lee said, “We didn’t think we’d make it this far, but everybody was proud to go this far in the season”. 

Jung’s team, the Senior Girls, tied for seventh. “I was a bit disappointed because I know we can do so much better,” she said.

As senior volleyball teams at Hamber are made up of grade 11’s and 12’s, some members will not be returning for next year’s season. Lee noted that the team “had some great chemistry.” He remarked that “everyone on the team were friends, so next season [they] might not have that.” Jung shared that she “was really going to miss the people on [her] team” when she graduates in June 2022, “because those people are some of [her] best friends.” 

An obvious difference for the 2021 volleyball cities in comparison to previous years was the pandemic, and both Jung and Lee agreed that the lack of spectators changed the tournament experience quite a bit. For both athletes, they felt it was strange to have no friends and parents cheering them on from the stands. 

Finally, Lee and Jung were asked about their favourite parts of the season. “There was this one game we had against Van Tech that was five sets where each set was won by two points. Everyone was on fire,” explained Jamie. Michael said that “the best part was when [they] went to zones and played against different schools with different levels of volleyball.” He enjoyed “experienc[ing] how teams from different parts of BC played.”

Even with the difficulties of the pandemic, it was a successful season for both senior teams, representing Hamber well on the court.