Boys volleyball team advances to semifinals for the first time, eyes CIF championship run
The Malibu High boys volleyball team advanced to the semifinals of their two-day Varsity Shark Attack Tournament for the first time in the event’s six-year history.
The Sharks won four games in the 10-team tournament hosted in the Malibu High gym each year.
The team went 3-0 in pool play and advanced to the Feb. 28 to March 1 tournament semifinals, where they fell to San Marino, who wound up as the tournament’s champion. Malibu recorded victories over Brentwood, Centennial, Golden Valley, and Village Christian in the tournament.
Malibu’s 6-foot-5 outside hitter Martin Kuriel, a sophomore, was named to the all-tournament team.
Sharks head coach Derek Saenz said a tournament title would have been nice; however, he wants MHS focused on its long-term goal of contending for a CIF championship.
“We are really talented,” he explained. “It depends on how hard we work and how consistent we are. We have so much depth. In the past, we’ve had great players, but this year every position is filled, and we have backups to every position, and we have some size.”
The Sharks finished last season with a 23-13 overall record and advanced to the semifinals of the CIF Southern Section Boys Volleyball Division VI Championship. The squad also went 10-0 en route to winning the Citrus Coast League crown.
The Sharks entered their game against Santa Monica on Monday with an 8-6 record. MHS began its 2025 campaign with three straight losses before reeling off six consecutive wins. Two of those victories — both 3-0 sweeps — were over Oaks Christian and Oak Pak, two teams who bullied the Sharks on the court in the past, said Saenz, while noting Kuriel and junior outside hitter Keegan Cross, Malibu’s 6-foot-1 captain, played great in the matches.
The victories — 25-13, 25-18, 25-19 over Oaks Christian and 25-20, 25-24, 25-22 over Oak Park — featured Malibu players constantly rising above the net for thunderous kills and blocks.
However, Saenz said the Sharks, a team composed of mostly sophomores and juniors with no 12th-graders, being athletically skilled doesn’t guarantee championship contention.
“I’m asking them to grow up fast and do something most people don’t do,” he explained. “It’s not, ‘I can jump high; I’m fast; and I’m strong.’ Anybody can do that. It’s a matter of: What is your mentality? How do you handle adversity? What kind of person are you to the people around you? Those things are more of a dying art. We have talent. If we can achieve making the people around us better, the sky is the limit with this crew.”
Malibu hosted Carpinteria on Tuesday. They play at Nordoff in Ojai on Thursday. The Sharks host Hueneme on March 18 and play at Channel Islands in Oxnard on March 25. All those teams are Citrus Coast League opponents.
The Sharks went undefeated in the league a season ago. Malibu, Saenz said, wants to win the league title again this season.
“We didn’t drop a set last year,” he recalled.
The coach wants the MHS team to play with a sense of urgency toward contending for a CIF title, also.
“My job is to get them to buy into this year and not wait until next year because we have no seniors,” Saenz said. “We need to do it now. Not next year.”