With a convincing 9-3 lead in the final set, the Jets could almost grasp victory against Albany, the fifth seed of the 2025 North Coast Section Men’s Volleyball Championships. Though slotted as the first seed of the tournament, Encinal was feeling the pressure from Albany, leading them to lose previous sets by five points and eight points respectively.
Following tremendous effort by Encinal to win the fourth set 28-26, the Jets began to lose momentum in the latter half of the fifth set. Multiple missed serves and reception errors allowed Albany to stage a comeback, ultimately taking the set 15-13 and closing Encinal’s playoff run.
“I am happy that we got to the semi-finals since no other team in Encinal Men’s Volleyball history has ever gotten this far,” said senior Griffin Chen. “Still, I’m also disappointed because I know that we should’ve won and we could’ve brought a banner or something back.”
“A lot of the seniors were disappointed about how we lost,” said senior Jordan Grassman. “Still, we were proud of how the underclassmen played and how good they have gotten over the past year, and we’re excited to see how good they get in the future.”
Reaching the semi-finals marks the deepest playoff run in school history for men’s volleyball, even though the team has qualified for NCS in prior years.
“I think changing our coach really helped because it utilized what we had on our team a lot more,” said senior libero Sam Smith. “I feel like in the past years, it was just playing volleyball, and that’s it. But this year it was, ‘Hey, we have a scouting report on this team, this is what we’re going to do to better it; this isn’t working so we are going to change this…’”
As a whole, the season was hugely successful for the team, putting up an overall record of 18-12, and a dominant 9-1 in league games specifically.
“This entire season has been pretty crazy to me,” said Smith. “It’s my last season, which I’m definitely sad about, but we’ve done super good… For myself as a player, I think I’ve excelled a lot.”
Other memorable moments from the season were the Island Slam and Senior Night, both of which the Jets won without trouble. Along with that, with wins against both Alameda and St. Joseph Notre Dame, Mr. Chen quickly labeled the team the “Island Champions.”
“On my senior night, I dove and busted my shin, and had a really deep laceration which ended my senior night pretty quickly,” recalled Smith. “I didn’t get to do all the senior events that seniors usually do… but it was still a pretty memorable event.”
The Jets’ roster fielded fifteen total players, including seven seniors that brought experience and leadership to the team. At its core, the team fostered strong bonds and positive morale, which reflected in their success on the court.
“We were more involved with each other. We taught each other how to play, how to do certain things, and we ended up working really well together,” added Grassman.
