Three CCAL boys volleyball teams are in the playoffs for the first time. Here’s how they did it

Modesto High’s Traci Mulder stepped away from coaching volleyball after the 2021 season. Or so she thought.

Despite not coaching during the fall, Mulder returned to the sidelines to coach another volleyball team at Modesto this spring.

This time, it was the boys.

Last season, Davis High and Central Catholic joined Big Valley Christian as Modesto schools with boys volleyball teams, but the 2023 spring season was the first where all seven Modesto City Schools fielded boys teams.

When the opportunity to coach again came up, Mulder — who coaches with her daughter Tori Galloway — took it.

“They were running the boys (volleyball team) and the athletic director said would I consider it,” Mulder said. “My daughter … was back and I’m like, ‘Hey, what would you think about doing it together? I can’t do it by myself.’”

Mulder and the Panthers won five of their last six games this season before finishing 12-15 and 6-4 in Central California Athletic League play.

They were in the running for a postseason berth until the season’s final game.

Just three CCAL teams qualified for the 2023 postseason, and despite winning a competitive five-set thriller against Pitman on Thursday, April 27, Modesto barely missed out on the playoffs.

The win created a three-way tie for the final two playoff spots, which went to Pitman and Downey because they had a higher league set winning percentage. Enochs High secured a playoff berth after winning the CCAL. First-round games are Tuesday, May 2, at 7 p.m. at host sites.

All three are in the playoffs for the first time in school history after fielding their first boys volleyball teams this year.

“We’re excited,” Enochs coach Spencer Barclay said of advancing to the postseason. “We had a sense of accomplishment after achieving our goal of winning league, so now, we’re excited to work toward our next goal of winning in the first round of the playoffs.”

The journey to the playoffs started by measuring interest.

Last year, coaches at Enochs put out interest cards to see who’d want to me on the inaugural team and received positive feedback.

“We kind of had an idea that there was pretty good interest,” Barclay said. “We knew that we’d have the numbers interested. As far as what was coming out, we had no idea until they came out.

The result was 40 potential players at tryouts, enough for Barclay and his coaching staff to separate the teams into freshman, junior varsity and varsity teams.

The varsity team won 20 games, the most of any Modesto City School and third of any Stanislaus District playoff qualifier behind Patterson (23-10) and Ripon Christian (21-5). The Eagles also established themselves as the program to beat in the CCAL, going a perfect 10-0 and losing just five sets during league play.

Similar to Enochs, Downey had a surplus of interested boys. The CCAL’s third-place finisher did not make any cuts and fielded all three levels with the goal of winning now while also building a program for the future.

“The coolest thing was building the anticipation … and building that excitement on campus,” said Knights coach Tera Coleman. “We made sure it was in our announcements and had a meeting during basketball season.”

Pitman finished second in the league and was one of only a few league opponents to win a set against Enochs.

Coach Kristen Pontes-Christian was named the coach about a week before tryouts. They were not able to play a full slate of preseason games, but she has seen her team improve with each league game.

“We did not anticipate making the postseason, we barely had a preseason,” she said. “The guys are like sponges. They grasp it so fast … after practice, they’re like, ‘We want to keep going.’ We appreciate that they work so hard.”

No. 10 Enochs, No. 14 Pitman and No. 15 Downey all are on the road in the first round of the Division I playoffs. They face Monterey Trail, Folsom and Whitney, respectively, who have established their volleyball programs as some of the best in the Sac-Joaquin Section.

“The boys are going to get to see a really high caliber of play,” Coleman said. “They have gotten to see some of these teams play and were inspired by that alone. While we know it is going to be a challenge … the biggest thing is gaining that additional (motivation).

In Division II, No. 9 Patterson and No. 16 Ceres travel in Tuesday’s opening round. In Division III, No. 15 Ripon visits No. 2 Merced, and in Division IV, Ripon Christian gets the top seed and No. 8 Big Valley will also host a first-round matchup. No. 12 Denair travels to start its postseason journey.

The section’s top teams likely feature boys who play volleyball year-round on club teams, and while CCAL teams have a limited number of club volleyball players, there are a few that have had an impact this season.

Modesto’s Cole Rogers is among the top players in the section in kills, with 345, and Enochs’ kills leader Matthew Suico has spent multiple years on travel teams as well.

“We told the guys … we just played Cole, who did a great job, but there will be multiple Coles,” Pontes-Christian said. “ There will be multiple go-to people on the court.”

By making the postseason in their first season, each CCAL team has laid a foundation of success for future teams moving forward.

“When you’re creating a standard, you have to have a vision,” Coleman said. “It is easier to envision team success when people have set that precedent for you. When people are like, ‘I look like them, I am just as athletic as them, I have the same passion as them,’ it’s easier to repeat.”