Few high school athletes get to say they ended their rival school’s 170-game win streak, let alone beat them in CIF and took home a victory in the pairs tournament. Juniors Addison and Avery Junk took part in beating Mira Costa in the Bay League, as well as in the CIF finals. Both sisters are committed to Florida State University for volleyball and aspire to play after college as well.
The team’s victory against Mira Costa was not only a huge achievement for rivalry’s sake. It was a historical moment for the tournament itself.
“Costa hasn’t lost a game of beach volleyball since their team was made. CIF is a relatively new competition, but since it was created, they’ve won it every year. We lost to Costa the last two years in the finals and then in the Bay League this year, which determines if you go to CIF, we broke the 170-game win streak and qualified,” Addison said.
Being on Varsity since their freshman year, which tends to be predominantly seniors, the twins have had firsthand experience with serious alterations to the team. This has allowed them to analyze their strengths and enhance what allows them to do well. This year, the team’s relationships flourished, allowing them to take advantage of that on the court.
“Every year we’ve had really strong upperclassmen, and last year we lost five starting seniors. So, coming into the season, our expectations were kind of low just because we lost a good chunk of our key players, and a lot of newer, less experienced players were being brought up. But the reason why our season ended up being so well is just because of how close everyone was,” Avery said. “That pushed everyone to work harder in practice, and I feel like it held everyone accountable. It was a family. That kept it easy to just gel together and get gritty wins, even though we might’ve had less experience playing together or overall.”
In addition to the success of the season, the girls were able to establish meaningful friendships and erase any toxicity that often comes with competitive sports.
“There was less drama this year, and it made it a lot easier for everyone to root for each other. A lot of times in sports like this, people get so caught up in not being or trying to become ‘the one’ on the team, but this year, no one cared where they were. Everyone just wanted to win so bad that it didn’t matter,” Addison said. “The JV girls brought up did a really good job of caring purely about the team as a whole. They came every game with energy that hyped us up, and the amount of confidence they brought with them seemed to even get into other teams’ heads. It made us seem even more comfortable than we already were. They brought a fire to our team.”
As the team progressed further in the CIF tournament, Avery explained a tradition that benefited the team towards the end when the pressure began to set in.
“Something that the captains and the coaches decided to do before every CIF game was a team dinner the night before. The night before big games, just sitting at your house, in your room, can lead to overthinking everything, which distracts from my performance. So getting everyone out of that bad environment, coming together, and talking about the game is a nice thing to do the night before to relieve some anxiety,” Avery said.
The months of preparation made the victory all the more worth it, according to Addison.
“Winning CIF with my team was probably the best moment of my life,” Addison said. “The team is all of our best friends. It’s a really tight-knit group. Everyone wanted to win for each other, so when it happened, it was just the best feeling.”