“One, two, three, four! Everybody hit the floor!”
A flurry of hands smack the ground.
Then, the Carlmont girls’ freshman volleyball team all clap and cheer, “Ace!”
In volleyball, an ace is a type of serve, and Carlmont had a lot of them in their game against Burlingame High School.
On Sept. 26, Carlmont came out victorious against Burlingame after two sets.
In the first set, Carlmont won with a score of 25-9.
Our strong serves made Burlingame scram to just get the ball over and off their side.
— Raina Lahiri
As the second set came around, Carlmont missed some of their serves but pushed through and got some aces; as a result, Carlmont won the second set with a score of 25-17.
According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Official Volleyball Statistics Rules, “A service ace is a serve that results directly in a point. A service ace is awarded to a player if the serve strikes the opponent’s court untouched, the serve is passed by the opponent but cannot be kept in play, if the referee calls a violation on the receiver, or if the receiving team is out of the rotation.”
The amount of aces that Carlmont had helped them win the game. However, that wasn’t the only factor that led to Carlmont’s victory; communication was also important.
“In the first set, we beat them because we were defensively doing well. We made sure to also work together by trusting our communication skills on and off the court during the second set. Burlingame overall did not work that well together since they were not as skilled as us. We were able to dig up all of their hits, serves, and passes,” said Amber Chia, a freshman.
During the game, we did positive cheers, and supported each other before and after any of us served, by saying, ‘You will get it next time!’ or, ‘You got this!
— Olivia Li
Carlmont also encouraged their teammates when the game got intense in an effort to motivate each other.
“During the game, we did positive cheers and supported each other before and after any of us served by saying, ‘You will get it next time!’ or ‘You got this!’” said Olivia Li, a freshman.
Overall, Carlmont’s serves were strong, and that helped them win the game.
“Overall, serves are just easy points. Our strong serves made Burlingame scram to just get the ball over and off their side. Sometimes we would switch up the type of serve that we were doing; short serves, deep serves, or float serves [a serve that barely goes over the net] because it makes the other team unsure of where it is going to next,” said Raina Lahiri, a freshman.
The girls freshman volleyball team will be playing against Aragon High School on Oct. 2 at Carlmont.
