The volleyball season has finally come to an end. A happy end.

Two ASD Junior Varsity teams traveled to New Delhi, India, to compete for the title of MESAC champion. In several cases, the teams’ travel was complicated by the timing of this year’s middle-school Week Without Walls trips. Both teams had eighth-graders attending the week in another part of India and playing on the JV team at the MESAC tournament. Associate Principal Paul Kasky, whose own children were playing in the tournament, traveled with the student-athletes so they could attend both events.

Both JV teams finished extremely well overall, with the boys team winning gold, and the JV girls team receiving silver medals.

The JV girls team was placed at a disadvantage without one of their coaches, Ms. Liz Chaffee, who stayed in Doha because she was in the late stages of pregnancy. (She has since given birth to a beautiful baby daughter!) The team was helped by their regular coach Emma Drummond, and math teacher and coach Ms. Laurie Dubois filled in, too.

This year’s JV Dragon girls were a tall, coordinated group, and their style of play capitalized on their strong players. They regularly won plays at the net, and they grew in confidence through the round-robin segment of the tournament.

The girls’ team went into the semi-final game nervous, as they had already gone against Dubai American Academy and lost during the round-robin. However, the team pulled through and won on account of their energy and spirit. They felt motivated to beat the DAA team.

The girls advanced to the championship game where they went against ASDubai. Nerves again factored into their play, and the Dragons struggled early on, falling behind Dubai during the first two sets. The girls settled down, played more consistently in the third set, and won that game. However, despite the improved play, they lost the fourth set. The team was disappointed that they didn’t win gold.

Nevertheless, their coaches reported that the girls’ JV team showed great visible growth from the start of the season, From the Filipino Women’s League matches, where they did not win a single game, to finishing as the overall second-place winners against peers from around the region, the changes were impressive. 

The JV boys’ volleyball team this year was very strong, easily crushing all opponents. At the MESAC tournament, they marched through the round-robin segments to the semifinals against ASDubai.

From there, they easily advanced to the championship match where they once again took on host school, AES Delhi. As in the previous match, they played a dominating style, reeling off more offensive power than any other school, and they won in straight sets.

The team this year consisted of many experienced 10th-graders who made sure to coach the younger members of their team so the newcomers could excel without them. In their rare moments of doubt, they were still filled with excitement to be in New Delhi, representing ASD athleticism at a true MESAC tournament.

Coach Jeremy Horton made sure everyone was well-prepared in all skill areas, but he acknowledged the importance of the strong natural athletes on the team. He also pointed out how much effort the entire team put into each practice, and he noted that the boys’ wins were the well-deserved results of those preparations.