On May 16, the Aragon Dons’ varsity boys volleyball team became the CCS D1 champions, beating Mountain View High School 3-1. The energy was electric as the third-seeded Dons prepared to face off against the fourth-seeded Spartans. The crowd was buzzing as fans from both teams gathered at Saint Francis High School to watch the CCS Division 1 Championship game.
The starting lineup for the first set consisted of senior court captain and setter Santiago Smirnoff, senior and junior outsides Ailesh Chauhan and Tyler Rivera, junior and senior middles Raghav Vemulapalli and Cameron Ngai, senior opposite Charlie Wilcox and junior libero Peyton Chiang. The set started out with teams playing evenly, with key attacks by Wilcox and Rivera until the score was 6-6. Vemulapalli had a crucial spike into the middle of the court off of a bad pass over the net, which snowballed into an early lead.
The Dons continued to build a lead to 18-11, until momentum shifted and the Spartans started to claw back. The Spartans scored six straight points and head coach Meliame Hala’ufia called a time-out. Immediately after, Vemulapalli killed off a quickset by Smirnoff, shifting energy back in favor of the Dons. They ended up winning the set 25-21.
“After the first set, I thought we were going to sweep them,” Vemulapalli said. “Somehow they came back in the game.”
The second set started off well for the Dons. After losing a point, they bounced back, with Ngai putting away three key points off of Smirnoff’s sets. However, the Spartans weren’t letting up as they made many kills, the score in their favor until it hit 9-12, when the Dons rallied back, bringing the score to 14-12 and forcing the Spartans to call a time-out.
The Dons maintained the lead until 18-15, when the Spartans fought back heavily. As the score hit 23-23, the Spartans scored two break points, eventually winning the set 23-25 on an ace.
The Dons rolled into the third set, putting in #24 senior opposite Ben Chang to replace Wilcox. He got his first point to bring them a lead of 2-1, which they wouldn’t lose for the rest of the set. The Dons really started to take over the game after 19-14 and ended up routing the Spartans 25-19. The Spartans played in a reserved fashion for the whole set, not having a lead at any point in a display of the Dons strength. It was a contrast to the loss in the second set. Smirnoff attributes that to constant adaptation.
“We talked about what we could have done better,” Smirnoff said. “We made adjustments accordingly, and then we just got it right back together through the whole time.”
During the fourth set, the Spartans dropped the ball several times due to miscommunications that threw their flow off. At 11-10, a crucial rally was won by the Dons and energy seemed in their favor. However, immediately after, the Spartans fired back and brought the score to 11-11. For the rest of the set, Spartans coach Josh Sullivan argued with the referees’ calls despite the fact that the game was very even, with the Spartans usually having a one-point edge over the Dons until 22-22. The Spartans began playing scared, tipping the ball and giving simple balls over the net until Rivera had a powerful kill, winning Aragon the game with the final fourth set score 25-22.
After the game, Hala’ufia reflected on being able to pull through and win the championship for the first time in program history.
“I was very happy with our team,” Hala’ufia said. “It’s been thirteen years, so this is the first [championship] for program history. We’ve been [here] before but we lost two years ago.”
Chauhan also reflected on a similar sentiment.
“Me and Santi [have] been on varsity since sophomore year,” Chauhan said. “We lost in three [sets] to Mountain View that year in CCS D[ivision] 2. That was sad, so we got it back for the class of [20]24 … Seeing us win that CCS medal truly made me realize this program is special.”
Smirnoff gave closing opinions on the experience of the game as a whole.
“It was a great atmosphere,” Smirnoff said. “Better than we’ve had all season … [We’ve] got a great group of guys and [we] got through it together, played great and talked to each other when there [were] struggles.”
With this win, the team advances to the CIF tournament. Their first game of the tournament was on May 19, against the Laguna Creek Cardinals.
