The Denair boys volleyball team began this season with virtually all the players learning the fundamentals of the sport because they had never played it before. They were accomplished in soccer – having won back-to-back Sac-Joaquin Section championships – but volleyball was brand new to them. 

Still, the Coyotes exceeded everyone’s expectations except their own to finish second in the Southern League and qualify for the 16-team Division IV playoffs as the 12^th seed. And though the season ended with Tuesday night’s 25-15, 25-21, 25-19 loss to No. 5 West Campus in Sacramento, the result only fueled the fire of the nine players expected to return next spring.

“We talked about it after the game. Next year, the bar is raised,” said Denair coach Christy North. “They’re no longer beginners. They’re 100% ready. They’re thinking about soccer, but they can’t wait to play volleyball again next year.”

Denair (6-6) was a decided underdog against the Warriors (19-13), whose roster was full of experienced players. The Coyotes also were missing two of their middle blockers, both sidelined by injury.

“It took until the third set to get used to them,” admitted North. “We actually started coming on strong at the end of the second set, but we just ran out of points. Then we started the third leading 4-1.”

That momentum eventually faded in the face of West’s depth and talent advantage, but North said Denair never gave up.

“We had some amazing plays and so much energy from the bench,” she said. “I’m so proud of these young men.”

North said the improvement the Coyotes showed is hard to quantify, but reflects on their work ethic, determination to learn a new sport and the bond they already had formed on the soccer field.

“They’ve gone from definitely what would have been a novice freshman team to a B level varsity team, able to compete regardless of outcome,” she said. “It’s that entity of being a team that keeps them in the game because they feed off each other. Our bench last night was as loud as West Campus’ crowd.”

The veteran soccer coach said she had “a blast” coaching a group of volleyball neophytes.

“I love coaching boys. It’s the energy. It’s the humor. The bus ride home last night was hilarious,” North said. “I’m really enjoying being there for these guys. My role this year has been teaching them the skills of volleyball, but they pushed each other on the energy.”

Only three seniors graduate this spring, so Denair could have most of its team back next year. Add in a few freshmen North hopes to recruit and any volleyball experience the players can add through summer camps and clinics, and who knows what could happen in a year.

“Most of them are focused on going to soccer clinics in the summer, but we’ll probably have some open gyms here in Denair twice a week for boys and girls,” North said. “We’ll see what happens.”

The Denair Unified School District will open its doors to parents and the community Thursday, May 4 with open houses at all its campuses as well as academic demonstrations and awards presentations. 

“It’s all about exposure, especially for families who haven’t seen us before,” explained Superintendent Terry Metzger. “This is a great place to educate your children.”

Denair Charter Academy will be hosting a BBQ fundraiser to support their extracurricular activities. The BBQ is open to everyone and features a hamburger meal prepared by the DUSD Food Services team. The BBQ will be held at the DECA lunch shelter, behind the District Office.

Here is the schedule for each school site:

Denair Elementary Charter Academy

5-7 p.m. – Science Fair in the elementary gymnasium. Art show featuring student creations in the cafeteria. Open house in all classrooms.

Denair Charter Academy

5-7 p.m. – Family Night for DCA students and their families. Classrooms will be open to meet and talk with teachers and observe various projects.

Denair Middle School

5-7 p.m. – Teachers in all classrooms will welcome parents and others.

Denair High School

5-7 p.m. – Classrooms will be open for all parents to meet and talk with teachers and observe various projects.

7 p.m. (in the DHS gym) – Annual awards presentation. More than 150 of the 275 students on campus will be honored. Honor roll awards based on grade-point average will be announced, students receiving scholarships will be recognized and those with perfect attendance will be celebrated.

In Christy North’s mind, her Denair boys volleyball team already is playing with house money. Devoid of expectations, a squad comprised of soccer players coming off back-to-back Section championships in that sport making the playoffs in an entirely new one is stunning … to everyone but themselves.

“They were coming off the playoffs in soccer, so they thought, of course we make the playoffs in volleyball,” North said. “They always thought they could get to that higher level.”

Such will be the case Tuesday night when Denair (6-5 overall, 4-2 in the Southern League) hops on a bus for a two-hour drive to Sacramento to face West Campus (18-13) in the first round of the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV tournament.

To say that the 12^th-seeded Coyotes are underdogs against the No. 5 Warriors is a massive understatement. And yet, despite the odds, North said her players – most of whom are brand new to volleyball – refuse to believe they can’t beat anyone in anything.

“They’re never tense. They don’t get down on themselves,” she said. “They’re excited to be in this position, come what may.”

Denair qualified for the playoffs by winning its final match of the regular season against Orestimba last Tuesday. The Coyotes impressed North – who has coached boys and girls teams in Northern and Southern California for decades – with their consistent improvement this season. Skills such as jump serves, blocking, setting and passing were new to almost all of them a few months ago. And now, here they are in the postseason again.

“Here’s the thing: We’ll do what we do,” said North. “We need to go in and have fun, because the more relaxed we are, the better we play. I’m sure West has more experience. Maybe we can surprise them that first set. We’re scrappy and we’re enjoying ourselves and we’re having fun.”

The winner of Tuesday’s match will move on to the quarterfinals Thursday night in the 16-team bracket. Southern League champion Ripon Christian (21-5) is the No. 1 seed.

The boys on Denair’s two-time Sac-Joaquin Section Division VI soccer champions had so much fun competing as a team that even before their season ended in the NorCal playoffs in March, they decided to take up an entirely new sport – volleyball – just so they could stay together.

The athleticism and skill that has served the Coyotes so well on the soccer field the past two years appears to be translating to the court. Despite an entire roster of players brand new to volleyball, Denair will make the playoffs if it can knock off Orestimba at home Tuesday night in its final Southern League match of the regular season.

The quick success comes as a mild surprise to veteran volleyball coach Christy North, but not necessarily to her players, who have won 33 soccer matches playing together the past two seasons.

“Their expectations were always so much higher than mine, because they’re soccer champions,” North admitted. “The best thing about this team is they already were a team. They already trusted each other. They just needed to learn about to play volleyball.”

The idea of the soccer players transitioning to volleyball began with senior Tim Hernandez, the only player with previous volleyball experience. He has taken AP English from North the past two years, which is how he learned she needed players for the boys volleyball team. Hernandez recruited his friend Angel Sanchez, another senior. With the two of them onboard, most of the rest of the soccer team quickly followed their lead.

“I wanted to play volleyball last year, but the other guys wouldn’t commit,” said Hernsandez, who previously had played competitive volleyball in Cambodia, where his father was a pastor for five years. “But our entire soccer group is pretty tight, so when Angel and I committed as seniors, that convinced the others.”

That decision was made earlier this year, well before soccer season had ended.

After she found out the composition of her team, North quickly began arranging drills and lessons to introduce volleyball to boys who may have seen it played on TV, but barely knew the rules or any of the techniques of passing, serving, spiking and blocking.

“I would take the soccer players into the gym in seventh period and show them how to pass and how to serve,” North said. “But I was very careful. I didn’t want to jinx anything or get anyone hurt.”

In fact, the volleyball team’s first match had to be rescheduled because Denair had a NorCal soccer match the night before. The first time the Coyotes stepped on the floor in a real volleyball game was March 6 against Waterford.

“I didn’t know what it would be like,” North admitted. “They were confused with rotations a little, but I had drilled that into them. I didn’t want us to lose points by not being in the right spot. We ended up winning in three sets, but it was kind of chaotic.”

That positive start was followed, not surprisingly, by some growing pains. Still, the Coyotes are 5-5 overall and 3-2 in the Southern League with only Tuesday’s match against Orestimba remaining. Despite its lack of experience, Denair’s players still have enough natural athletic ability that they show measurable progress from practice to practice and game to game.

“We have guys like Angel who is a superior athlete,” North said. “He’s doing jump serves now. So are Tim, Manny (Renteria) and Nico (Zavala).”

The improvement was noticeable in Thursday night’s match against SL champion Ripon Christian, a school known for its dominance in volleyball. The Coyotes lost 3-0, but North saw signs her players could compete against a more talented team.

“The difference in speed is extraordinary between RC and us,” she said. “All their players play club volleyball. Still, we had some great moments. So we’re confident going into our match against Orestimba.”

No matter how the rest of this season plays out, North knows she has enough players already committed to field a team next year. That’s a change from 2020, when the season was wiped out by the COVID pandemic after just two matches, and the next two years, when there was no boys team.

This year’s team features five juniors, two sophomores, a freshman and just three seniors – all of whom are gaining valuable experience.

“Every single day that you see them play, you see them progress,” North said.

Hernandez believes playing volleyball has allowed him and his teammates to continue to enjoy their special bond.

“We just had to learn the fundamentals, like passing and hitting,” he said. “Mostly, we wanted to have fun. We’re a championship team and we hoped that would carry over to volleyball. We just like being together. Even the bus rides in volleyball are fun, just like in soccer.”

The petting zoo full of adorable young animals may have drawn the most oohs and aahs Thursday as Denair High School celebrated Ag Day, but there were plenty of other ag-related industries and potential career paths on display.

The annual event is intended to shine a light on the importance of agribusiness and all its facets in the community. It provides an opportunity for local businesses to educate students of all ages about the kinds of things produced and the many different kinds of local jobs that exist to support ag. It also is a chance for high school students to learn more about ag-related careers and for younger students to be exposed to what happens on the high school campus.

“It is an opportunity to expose the entire district to ag,” explained Holli Jacobsen, an ag teacher at Denair High and the event’s organizer.

Students from the other nearby Denair campuses – Denair Elementary Charter Academy, Denair Middle School and Denair Charter Academy – rotated to the grassy area behind the high school throughout the day. Music was playing as Denair High’s coyote mascot and another student dressed as the Easter Bunny kept everyone entertained while posing for photos with students on a beautiful, cloudless spring day.

The younger students arrived first one class at a time. Many were naturally drawn to the petting zoo, where young goats, calves, pigs and chickens were available to touch and see close up. Nearby were larger horses and show pigs as well as a dog that is part of the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department K-9 Unit.

There also were three specific educational components to the event for elementary students.

• Members of the high school’s Hispanic Youth Leadership Council (HYLC) presented a lesson in Spanish about almond trees to students who are in DECA’s dual-language immersion program.
• High school FFA volunteers led a session on pigs and ear notching.
• Another group showed youngsters how butter is made and gave them samples of local cheeses to taste.

There was plenty else to see among the 18 vendors, ranging from tractors to pickup trucks and large diesel semis to a local feed store, a farm credit agency, a farm irrigation company, an animal genetics business, a pallet company and many others. A few non-ag outfits also were present. In addition, there were representatives from a number of Denair High clubs and organizations offering information to middle school students.

The middle school and high school students also enjoyed a barbecue lunch prepared by the school district’s food services staff.