On April 23, Hopkins-Park boys volleyball had their first home game of the season after three away games. Hopkins-Park won 3-0 versus the international school of Minnesota Academy. After winning this game, they now have a 3-1 record. Senior Dylan Austin said this was a breakout game for them.
“First three games we went to five sets for all of them, and we ended up winning two of them which was stressful. After this game we got out of our shell,” Austin said. “I feel like we have the talent to really take care of most of those teams and hopefully we figure it out as we keep going.”
Head coach Jeff Hochstein said the preparations they take in practicing to perform well are just mixing people around and getting people comfortable.
“We’ve been working a lot on working together as a team in practice. Having six guys on the court and running our offense,” Hochstein said. “We have a mix of guys who have been playing for a long time and guys who haven’t, so just getting everybody comfortable in practice has been important and mixing people around has worked best.”
According to Austin, they need to clean up and make less mistakes but they’ll make the right adjustments to get better by practicing
“We definitely need to fix the serving. We got to figure that out a little more, but after working on it in practice we’ll get it down,” Austin said.
Junior Owen Barnett said the reason boys volleyball is winning l games is because they practice realistic scenarios.
“Practicing game-like scenarios and just working on playing smart, not too hard, but also staying focused and disciplined is why we’re winning,” Barnett said.
Hochstein said he thinks these season has had some very near games but this was a good one for them to separate and prove people wrong
“We’ve had some really close matches. This was a really good one that wasn’t so close,” Hochstein said. “We’re gonna compete hard throughout the whole year, and we’re gonna shock a lot of people’s minds.”
Barnett said the teamwork so far has been great, and as the season moves on it will improve, which will help for sections.
“The team chemistry is really good, we bond very well (and) I’m looking forward to the season,” Barnett said. “If we can keep up the good connections we have with our teammates right now, then we should be great and hopefully get a good place in the rankings.”
Park’s next game is at 6:00 p.m. April 29 versus Orono
