Todd Lazoff (‘24) backs into place to set up for the first serve of his championship game as the rest of his team takes their positions in hopes of winning the league for the second year in a row.
On Wednesday, May 8, the boys varsity volleyball team played WIS in the championship match after having an undefeated regular season record. The Lions won their first set with a final score of 25-19 and kept this streak up, winning the second set with a score of 25-17. However, WIS began making a comeback in the third set and won the following two sets, both with final scores of 25-17.
“I feel like we just got ahead of ourselves after we went up 2-0,” sophomore Micah Goldrich said. “We started to rush and started to get ahead of what we were supposed to do.”
Ultimately, the Lions ended up losing the final set with a score of 15-9, causing the championship title to slip away from them. While players such as Goldrich and junior captain Joseph Vaisman felt that the referee called the Lions on more net violations than they felt they deserved, they agree that there were some things that the team could do better in the future.
“Overall, we were just playing very smoothly, probably our best games of the whole season,” Vaisman said. “But as soon as the other team started getting momentum in the third set, we started getting nervous and that ultimately led to our downfall.”
While this game did not end in the Lion’s favor, it is not the only opportunity the Lions have for playoffs. Unlike other JDS sports teams, the volleyball team participates in two different leagues. One of the leagues that the team participates in is the PVAC, the one that most of the teams at JDS participate in. The PVAC is the most important to the team according to former head coach Scott Wertleib. This is because many of the well-known schools in the area participate in this conference, including the school’s primary rival Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy, making it special to the players, according to Wertleib.
The other league that the team plays in for the regular season and playoffs is the Independent School Volleyball League (ISVBL), which includes schools farther away, allowing for schools from Montgomery County, Howard County, Frederick County and Fairfax County to be involved. Some schools that are a part of the ISVBL are Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School, Atholton High School and DC International School.
“It’s a good challenge to play some of the larger schools that have older kids,” Wertleib said. “Because [with one exception] we don’t really have senior kids playing at all.”
According to Wertleib, the ISVBL is also significant to the team because students are able to share their Judaism with more districts, as less Jewish schools are in the area. The ISBVL is a chance for the team to redeem themselves this season. While they lost the PVAC championship, the team plans to improve in preparation for the ISVBL playoffs, in which they only made it to the semifinals last year. The quarterfinal game will be on May 16.
“I hope the boys continue to grow, improve and learn from their mistakes to improve their game as a team so that they can get beyond the semi-finals this year and make it to the [ISVBL] championship,” Wertleib said.
