For South students, club sports are very popular, but the sand volleyball team the “Dawgers” was special. 

Seniors Jose Vazquez, Devin Copp, Chase Amos, Aidan McLaughlin, and coach Eli Pott (2021 graduate) created this team summer of 2022 in high hopes to have fun and win the league. Sadly that wasn’t the case, with the Dawgers ending the season with an official record of 5-16. 

“We were up against better players who handled the balls better; we also weren’t balanced as a team. We had two passers and two hitters which isn’t optimal,” said Vazquez.

Luckily for the Dawgers, they had Copp who according to them, was their best overall player. If not for Devin Copp the Dawgers would have struggled to win those 5 sets. 

“If you’re playing for the Dawgers you need to be a real dawg, and for us, that was Devin Copp. Without him, the team would have struggled,” said Amos and McLauglin. Although Amos and McLaughlin believe that Copp was the Dawgers’ MVP, Copp believes otherwise. 

“I think our best player overall was Aidan; he played great all around, solid defensively and offensively. He did really well to spot what the other teams struggled with and we’re good at,”  Copp said.   

There was a lot of positive energy between these three players, but according to them, there was one clear outlier. 

“We definitely faced the most adversity with Jose being 5’7”, and the same weight as me. It seemed to be a struggle for him to perform, which made it harder on the team. Aiden can attest to the handling of the ball as well,” said Amos. 

Amos wasn’t the only one who thought Vazquez could make some improvements for next year.

“Our team did the way we did because of effort, Jose of course had little to none, pretty garbage effort, really brought the team down in that sense. Jose would start jerking around after going up and he seemed to get too comfortable. It clearly brought the team down,” said McLaughlin.

A lot of the adversity seemed to have come from one person and that’s Vazquez but according to him it wasn’t just one person that held the team down,

“Every set we played, there was adversity. The old white men we played were a lot more technical and better. The game we didn’t have the most adversity was when we all came together collectively, and won a game,” he said. 

Despite the adversity the Dawgers had seemed to overcome, when they finally came together and won a game, all four players said it was their favorite moment of the season.

`“We celebrated by going to Circle 7 Ranch, and our coaches paid for everything. We got rowdy. Chase that man ordered two cheeseburgers. That man can EAT,” said Vazquez.

Much like Vazquez, McLaughlin had similar things to say for him.

“The first win was very exciting, the coaches paid for dinner and clearly Jose went crazy on the food, per usual.” 

Moments like this seemed to be the fuel to the flame for next year’s Dawgers team. 

“Of course, we will make a return. This time on top as the Dawgers will conquer the league. Who wants to be on the bottom if you can be on top.” clearly stated Vazquez. 

There is a lot of hype around next season for the Dawgers, and with high hopes comes high expectations as we hope to see the Dawgers come out on top.