April 21 marked boys’ varsity volleyball’s (15-14 record) final home game for the season, as the Panthers fell to Aragon High School in a back-and-forth five-set battle.

Despite the loss, Burlingame showed marked improvement in its offensive plays and ability to hold back opponents with long rallies and deep dives. Head coach Lawrence Ngai said he is proud of their growth throughout the season and looking forward to the program’s future.

“Certainly we have some challenges we need to work on. We’re only graduating two seniors this year, so hopefully next year we’ll come back strong,” Ngai said.

With the largest squad that the program has ever had, new additions to the team from different grade levels have allowed them to build on different skill sets and round out their overall performance in matches.

“I think we’re definitely improving because like this year, we have a lot of juniors and next year, we’re gonna have a lot of seniors…We also have a lot of really promising sophomores and freshmen who are already on varsity,” junior Aidan Kelley said. 

However, with so many new athletes and underclassmen entering the team, building a close-knit community hasn’t been easy. Now, nearing the end of the season, that community has created more benefits for the Panthers on the court. 

“If you have good teamwork, you need to know when to pass or like how you’re going to set the ball…So being able to work together and being in sync with each other is probably most important,” Kelley said.

The team has come to develop more chemistry on and off the court. They have not done  team bonding activities in the traditional sense, but the squad has been consistently going out to eat together throughout the season as a way to build rapport off the court.  

The Panthers are currently closing out the league season and will now be applying to enter into the Central Coast Section (CCS) championship tournaments. 

“If we make it to CCS and see how we can advance..we’ll fight for that and try to get there…try and get the best shot we can and if we’re not in the playoffs for CCS, we will prepare for next season,” Ngai said. 

With the league season coming to an end, the future for the team looks bright with the skill and community carrying over to next year. 

“This season was kind of like the calm before the storm,” Kelley said.