Orange County Volleyball Coaches have selected 7 Tesoro Titans for the 2016 Boys/Girls Orange County Volleyball All-Star Games to be played on Friday, June 3rd at Newport harbor High School.  The girls game will be played at 6pm with the boys game will follow at 7:30pm.  Members of the South All-Stars in the girls game are Senior outside hitter Makenna Ehlert who is attending Brown University in the fall, and Senior opposite Hannah Petke who is attending the University of New Hampshire.  In the boys game Tesoro is represented by 4 seniors from the 2016 South Coast League Championship Team.  The boys South team will include senior setter Garrett Paschall and senior outside hitters Cody McLaughlin and Connor Lyons who will all be attending Orange Coast College in the fall.  Senior middle blocker Cameron Kavoosi will atend UCSD in the fall.  The boys South All-Stars will be coached by Tesoro Coach Pat Eaton! Congrats to all of these hardworking seniors and thank you for all that you have done for Tesoro Volleyball.  GO TITANS!

Athletes head outside for second-year league

By Rhiannon Potkey of the Ventura County Star

Mary Anselmo’s volleyball roots were established in sand.

Anselmo received her first exposure to the sport at the beach. Her father, John, played on the AVP Tour, and she spent much of her childhood hitting balls a few feet away from the ocean.

Her younger sister, Natalie, followed the family’s footsteps in the sand and began her development into an AAU national beach champion.

Although they eventually drifted indoors, the Anselmo sisters have never abandoned the beach.

Their all-around skills will be put to good use as they transition to a new school.

The Anselmos transferred to Westlake High from La Reina in January, just in time for Westlake’s debut in the Interscholastic Beach Volleyball League.

“We are both so excited to be on the beach team and get more beach experience and play with everyone,” said Mary Anselmo, a junior. “I am really looking forward to being with the girls and establishing a better connection with each other.”

Westlake is one of four area schools participating in the IBVL this season along with Oxnard, Thousand Oaks and Oaks Christian.

League play begins Saturday morning at Dockweiler State Beach in Playa del Rey.

The IBVL is in just its second year of existence, and has grown exponentially. It debuted with eight teams last year, and features 30 teams this season.

The growth mirrors a scholastic trend nationwide.

The NCAA added sand volleyball as an emerging sport for women in 2011-12. In the inaugural season, 15 colleges field teams. The participation has already doubled to 30 this year, including UCLA, USC, Pepperdine, Loyola Marymount and Long Beach State.

Once the sport reaches the 40-team threshold, which is expected by the spring of 2014, the NCAA will begin making plans to transition sand volleyball to championship sports status.

“I think with the college scholarships out there, some girls are realizing this might be what they want to do and they are pursuing it with that in mind,” Oaks Christian volleyball coach George Hees said. “They see there are opportunities to continue playing beyond just doing beach tournaments now or just playing indoors.”

The popularity of beach volleyball is evident by the attention it receives during the Olympic Games.

For players and coaches, the attraction is obvious.

“Volleyball is a great sport, and then you put it at the beach and those are two of my favorite things in the world,” Hees said. “It’s a pretty good gig and I think it’s a lot of fun because there is a lot more action for the girls with only two people on the court.”

The IBVL, which is operated by the Southern Pacific Volleyball Committee, consists of 10 dual matches with each school fielding three teams of two players. Each team plays a best-of-three-set match.

The league is divided into a Northern Conference and a Southern Conference with 15 teams in each conference. Both conferences have three divisions of five teams.

The area teams are in the Northern Conference with Oaks Christian, Westlake and Oxnard playing in the Coastal Division and Thousand Oaks in the Riviera Division.

The team championships are scheduled for May 11 and the pairs championships for May 18.

“It’s going to be great to compete against other schools that are super far away,” Oxnard senior Shannon Balan said. “I have never played beach competitively before, so I am excited to see how it goes. I think it’s going to be a great challenge.”

Westlake junior Julia Mannisto has experience on the beach. The 5-foot-10 outside hitter won a beach tournament last summer, and plans to try out for the U.S Junior Beach National Team.

“Being outside is nice and just the fact that there are only two people and you are really close with your partner makes beach fun,” Mannisto said. “There is more responsibility because you are going to touch the ball 50 percent of the time. It’s more up to you instead of relying on other people.”

Mannisto is being recruited to play indoor volleyball in college, but is hoping she can play in the sand as well.

“If there was an opportunity I would definitely take it,” she said. “I will just have to see how next season goes because not all schools have a team yet. But it would be great if I could get the chance.”

Hees believes the growth at the NCAA level will continue having a trickle-down effect.

“I see beach volleyball becoming a high school sport,” he said. “I think it’s really going to take off.”