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The Mountain View Volleyball Club (MVVC), one of the largest boys and girls volleyball clubs in the country, recently brought home two gold and two bronze medals after competing at the Athletic Amateur Union (AAU) Junior National Championships in Orlando, Florida in June.
“Winning one national championship is hard enough, but winning two, one in girls and one in boys is very rare,” said Bryan Shires, spokesperson for the club. “I don’t believe there is another volleyball club in the country that medaled on (a) national level in both.”
Originally founded in 2009 as a boys volleyball club, MVVC expanded to include girls volleyball and now serves about 600 athletes between the ages of 10 and 18 years. The Sunnyvale facility, located at 477 N. Mathilda Ave., draws players from a 30-mile radius and well beyond, said Jonah Carson, the boys club director.
The mission of the club, which focuses on the total wellbeing and development of players, reflects the background of the founding directors Mike Rubin and Brian Wahl and the coaches, many of whom are middle school and high school teachers. “I think at the core of our club is really this mission of helping young people grow and mentoring them. And it just so happens that we use volleyball as our conduit,” Carson said, who also is a teacher at Saint Francis High School in Mountain View.
The club has picked up 14 medals at junior national championships in past years, according to its website. But this year’s wins were particularly meaningful for the coaches, players and parents. Carson said the first-place win of the boys in the 12-and-under division as especially memorable, displaying a level of skill and camaraderie that was unmatched on and off the court.
“The joy from those kids playing and how much fun they have, and the support of the parents is just this super wonderful thing to see. And for them to win gold and be a top 12-and-under team is pretty unique. To have 12-year-olds competing nationally against other 12-year-olds from around the country is a really cool thing for our sport,” Carson said.
Vihaan Narayan won most valuable player in the 12-and-under division, a feat that Carson attributed to Narayan’s stellar serves and five-point service run that rallied the entire team. “He just was hitting this wicked serve. And there was such elation and the excitement of him making the service run for his team, and the way his team was running and rallying around him. So that was really fun,” Carson said.
Carson also commended head coach Will Yuen for the girls and boys 16-and-under divisions. The girls won first place with MVVC player Kendyll Winn named most valuable player, while the boys won third place in the tournament.
But Carson also was quick to emphasize that the success of the club was a community effort and not just an individual achievement. He described the mentorship of Tyler Rig, coach of the girls 15-and-under division that won bronze. Tyler regularly shows up at all the practices for the other teams, knows all of the players’ names and is ready to cheer them on and offer support when they need it, he said, adding that Rig’s commitment to the players is reflective of the entire club, which sent 24 boys’ and nine girls’ teams to compete at the tournament.
“I guess that’s the one thing that I think is really kind of cool about volleyball, maybe different than some other sports, is that there’s this amazing community of supportive people who are all involved,” Carson said.