The Boys Varsity Volleyball team heads into New England’s as the defending champions and with a boatload of expectations. Boasting a 7-2 record and a number two seed in the New England tournament, the team will open against NMH, a team they have beaten twice already. The team is led by Captain Joel Reitz ’07 one of five returning starters from last year’s New England Championship squad.Two keys to winning this year will be smart hitting from the outside hitters Fred Seddon ’07 and Napat “Kid” Jatusripitak ’07 and using six 6’ 3’’middle blocker Dan Thomas ’08 in slowing down the attack of opposing teams.
A nemesis of this year’s team has been Andover, who has handed Choate their only two losses on the season. Dan Thomas ’08 said, “After seeing them [Andover] twice during the season, we feel we are the better conditioned team. If we are able to elongate the match to go four, maybe five games, we feel we could use our endurance to outlast them.” On the day of the championship, the Choate team could end up playing two teams back-to-back, which could mean a total of ten games in one day for the Wild Boars, a total of four to five hours on the volleyball court. Coach Roderick Mobley will look to condition his team for this physically demanding day.
So far the team has had what Thomas describes as a “successful season.” The New England League has seen the rise of two premier squads, Choate and Andover, while the rest have not been as competitive. No team has taken a game off of the Wild Boars except for Andover over the course of the season. Choate also took a trip last week to New Haven to scrimmage against Yale. In a “competitive and friendly match” as described by Thomas, the Choate team was able to take a game off the Bulldogs, but ended up surrendering by a 3-1 margin. In having five out of six starters graduating this year, this could be the last year of the powerhouse, as the JV ranks have not been as successful as their Varsity counterparts. Although the team hopes to continue their dominance beyond this season, Captain Reitz said, “We would love to go out on top.”
