Volleyball match produces fun — and funds

The classic junior versus senior rivalry took a twist this year with the junior class hosting a volleyball tournament in order to fund-raise for the Prom. The three juniors team played each other and the two senior teams played each other Thursday. The winner of the junior teams played the winner of the two senior teams for the championship.
One of the three junior teams consisted of Matthew Rabel, Cooper Stein, Jake Klenotich, Jonelle Plahuta, Lena Hatter and Courtney Carter. 

“We’ve all met each other through playing high school soccer and as the years have gone by we’ve just gotten continuously closer,” Carter said. “When I heard about this tournament, they were the first people I thought of to make a team because I knew we would have good chemistry together, regardless of our lack of volleyball skills.”

Stein is a goalkeeper for both his club team and high school team. Hatter said he was a key player on the volleyball court as well.

“Cooper is actually an amazing keeper for his club team and varsity,” Hatter said. “He’s extremely good with his hands which gave us an up because his hand-eye coordination is definitely the best out of all of us.”

Rabel has had some difficulty adapting to the hands-only sport. According to his teammates, on occasion, he has unintentionally used his feet to play the ball which isn’t allowed during the game.

“Obviously Rabel doesn’t mean to kick the ball, but sometimes it’s just force of habit since we’re so used to playing with our feet,” Klenotich said. “Thankfully, tonight we didn’t have any kind of mishap that could’ve cost us points.”

Regardless of the outcome the team’s main purpose was to participate in the fund-raiser in order to help fund the Prom.

“I just believe that this year the junior class has really been lacking with fund-raising for the Prom,” Plahuta said. “Especially for someone who is going to Prom this year, I really want it to be fun and look good, instead of worrying about how much money I’m spending.”

Their team won their first two games against the other juniors allowing them to move onto the finals against the winning senior team. Seniors Samantha Intille, Auston Gonzalez, Sally Kempfer, Avery Kloeppel, Cameron Yeutter and Matt Senft-Greenberg beat the juniors in the final game of the tournament.

“Even though we lost, I definitely had a great time playing against all the other teams and actually participating in a fundraiser,” Hatter said. “Plus we beat both of the junior teams so that was still a pretty good outcome for us.

By Tyanna Tizol