The Foothill Technology High School (Foothill Tech) girls’ beach volleyball season is officially underway with the team starting off undefeated in league. Their most recent match took place on Feb. 29 against Oak Park High School (Oak Park) where they swept the competition 6-0.

Although beach volleyball had only been recognized as a sport at Foothill Tech for three years, the team has found much prior success. During the 2022-23 season the Dragons went 3-1 in league play and advanced to CIF play.

The dragons progressed past the first round of CIF with a win against Oak Park High School 3-2, but came up short against St. Margaret’s High School where they were defeated 1-4.

When entering into the new season, Malia Gray ‘24 stated, “I think the season is looking very promising. Everyone is putting their best foot forward … I hope that we will be able to win CIF but I think we’ll at least get further into the rounds than we did last year.”

To start off the match up, Foothill Tech’s line one team of Morgan Houston ‘25 and Gray lost their first set 18-2,1 but recovered in the second, 21-17. This pushed them into a tie breaker set to 15 where the duo won 15-9 to take the win and score one point for Foothill Tech.

Houston said, “I think I did pretty good at communicating with my partner and being consistent.”

On line two, Ashlyn Mullin ‘24 and Emily Drucker ‘26 used a combination of strong communication and teamwork to take the first set 21-17 and followed it up with a 21-14 win, putting the Dragons in the lead 2-0.

The Dragons line three, Kaili Garret ‘24 and Rylie Hannah ‘26, won their match 2-1. The team took the first set 21-16, lost the second set, then came back to win the tiebreaker 15-12.

Line four, Samantha Jacobson ‘26 and Lilac Reyes ’26, and line five, Aliana Hantgin ‘25 and Charlis Swezy ’27, both comfortably won their matches 2-0, rounding off the Dragons 6-0 sweep.

Coach Lynz said, “All pairs played well against Oak Park. Lots of communication on the court led to making strategic choices about ball placement that earned key points against strong opponents.”

The Dragons will play next on March 6, against Ventura High School (Ventura) where they hope to continue their prosperous early season play.