The Vixen Vex in First Home Game

The atmosphere of the crowded third floor gym surged as junior Alexandra Archer approached for a middle hit. She slammed the ball down mercilessly, refusing to ease up despite the otherwise relaxed game between Stuyvesant’s girls’ varsity volleyball team and Bard High School of Early College’s volleyball team. The other players had a similar mindset, making few, if any, errors throughout the game and taking advantage of every free ball over and every opportunity for a hit or a bump.

“There wasn’t too much I could evaluate them on, other than maybe serving and a few free passes, which they did well,” coach Vasken Choubaralian said. Indeed, key players like senior, co-captain, and outside hitter Ziqi Guo, senior and opposite hitter Zilin Guo, and senior, co-captain, and libero Kristina Kim had serving streaks of nine, seven, and seven, respectively. The scores were devastating for the other team, with the Vixens dominating 25-6 and 25-10.

The team this year is mostly unchanged because most of the starting players last year are seniors this year. However, a notable exception is freshman and middle hitter Anaïs Delfau, whose sister was last year’s captain Chloe Delfau.

Both Ziqi Guo and Choubaralian believe that the team’s chemistry this year is stronger. “The traditional view of a varsity team is that the seniors or juniors get to start because of experience. However, our starting freshman has the same, if not more, experience than some of the current juniors or seniors. In the end, coach tries to put the best lineup out there regardless of your grade,” Ziqi Guo said. Coach Chourbaralian and Assistant Coach Pan have demonstrated this mentality in their experimentation and flexibility with the lineup, allowing many of the more inexperienced players to come in as substitutes when the Vixens had a strong lead.

A straight two-set win for the Vixens’ first home game speaks to a promising season for them, and if last year was anything of an indication, they’re a strong prospect for playoffs, as well as the top teamof the Manhattan A League.

However, in the past, once the Vixens defeated schools in Manhattan in the playoffs, they struggled and had to end their season disappointingly early. Ziqi hopes that additional scrimmages, the heightened team bond, and the practice in improving passing will remedy this issue. “I see a lot of potential in our team, and as long as we play together like a team, we will be able to play our best every game,” she said.

“[Being PSAL Champions] will probably be a distant goal of mine. A more realistic goal would be semifinals, at least,” Choubaralian said. “We still need to work on backrow passing, service reception, and improving my setter a little bit. [With that], I think we’ll be quite unstoppable.”