A septet of Malibu High Sharks girls volleyball players will be honored before the squad’s home match against the Fairfax Lions on Friday.
A presentation will be given for 12th-grade Malibu volleyball players E. Bolander, Jade Nittolo, Jamison Douglas, Kendall Reeder, Mallory McMillan, Saxon Rhodes and Shaila Sundher as a part of the Sharks’ Senior Night.
Malibu head coach Derek Saenz said the seven seniors are bunch of hardworking players that he appreciates.
“I took over for a coach that had a lot of success, and last year—my first year—we didn’t, in terms of wins and losses,” he said. “This year, we still haven’t gotten back to where the program was when they were sophomores. Getting them to buy into it and try hard even though the immediate results of winning and going to playoffs were not there? It’s been a very mature patient group in that sense.”
Saenz said the Sharks seniors have been team players even when not getting playing time on the court.
“This group has stuck it out,” he said. “They are still committed to the process and very supportive of the younger girls. You don’t always get that. They come to practice and work hard every day.”
The 4 p.m. matchup against the Lions in the Malibu High gym is the home team’s last game of the season.
Malibu had a contest at Fillmore on Tuesday and entered the week with four wins and a double-digit number of matches, but Saenz said the season went well.
“We had some good wins,” he said. “The girls have worked hard and improved. There hasn’t been a lack of trying.”
The Sharks’ first victory was a 3-2 win over Bernstein on Aug. 27. The team defeated Fairfax, 3-1, on Sept. 4 and Hueneme, 3-0, 15 days later. Malibu’s latest win was a 3-0 drumming of Carpinteria on Oct. 3.
Saenz said knocking off Carpinteria was a big win for the squad because it came after Malibu lost sets it should have won against Fillmore and Santa Paula the week before. The Sharks lost to Fillmore, 3-1, but their one set win was by 10 points. Saenz said the way Malibu defeated Carpinteria was how elite athletes respond to crushing losses.
“Don’t put your heads down,” he said. “Trust your training. We are going to try to push ourselves into that mindset. We dropped a big match that we definitely should have won and turned that into a sweep of a very good team in Carpinteria.”
Saenz said Sundher was one the Sharks’ most improved players, but it might not be an improvement most noticed.
“She is a just a leader now,” Saenz said. “Comparing last year to this year: She would come in and do her job and leave, but now she has a presence walking in. The girls respond to her. She encompasses being a leader so much more.”
He said sophomore setter Vanessa Leinbach improved greatly from a freshman season where she didn’t get any playing time on the varsity team.
“She had a good offseason,” he said. “It’s a big jump to be a starter on varsity. She has had some good moments where she runs a good offense. At times she can take over matches and does a really good job distributing the ball.”
Saenz said throughout the season’s final games his message to the team stayed the same.
“We have to treat every point like its match point,” he said. “Play with urgency.”
Saenz said the Sharks’ frosh/soph team is 8-0 in the Citrus Coast League and the junior varsity squad had challenges, but it was mostly because a lot of its players were called up to the varsity level.
“Overall, we have a lot of girls playing, and they are enjoying it,” he said. “It’s good that they want to play. As a coach, you want to win, but it’s good to see how many girls have fallen in love with the sport.”
During the offseason, some of the players will play club team volleyball, while some will train with Saenz starting in November.
“We just keep going,” the coach described.