Student athletes join BCCHS’ first beach volleyball team
Two volleyball players at Daniel Pearl Magnet High School (DPMHS), senior Naamah Silcott and junior Cheyanne Losino challenged themselves with a new interest of theirs: beach volleyball.
This year is the first year that the California Interscholastic Federation – City Section (CIF) had beach volleyball as a sport. Birmingham Community Charter High School coach Romeo Carballo and his team, which includes Losino and Silcott, practiced since January.
“I wanted to play beach volleyball so I could better myself as a volleyball player,” Losino said. “It is great conditioning and offers a lot of skill training I could apply to my regular season. I played beach volleyball to sharpen my indoor skills and try something new.”
Both of them played on the BCCHS volleyball team in the fall and decided to join the new beach volleyball team. While the team practices on campus during the week, they play at Will Rogers State Beach on the weekends.
Beach volleyball is much harder to play because the movement in the sand can make it hard for players to get from one side to another, taking up most of the player’s energy. However, the communication aspect is much easier since there are only two members playing on the court at once.
Silcott has been playing volleyball since they were in fifth grade and has been wanting to join the beach volleyball team to try something new so they can create a better connection to volleyball.
“I wanted to see how the dynamic would be different for beach volleyball as well as the fact that there is a whole bunch of other mental notes you have to take while playing that are entirely different from playing regular volleyball,” team captain Silcott said.
This was Carballo’s first year teaching physical education at BCCHS but he has been an indoor volleyball coach for seven years. The BCCHS beach volleyball team had two pairs qualify for the CIF Los Angeles City Section. Silcott’s team was knocked off in the first round and the remaining team was knocked off in the second round, which placed the Birmingham team in fifth place.
“The season came to an end this past Thursday, April 20th,” Carballo said via an email interview. “I hope to see a lot of growth this off season as the girls went through several challenges to learn beach volleyball.”
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