Columbus North’s Lukas Iorio sets the ball during a match April 10 at Center Grove.
Submitted photo
Because of their growing popularity in schools across the state, the IHSAA this year classified boys volleyball and girls wrestling as “Emerging sports.”
Originally, that meant when the number of schools sponsoring those sports got to 150, they would become fully sanctioned. Last week, the IHSAA board of directors voted to reduce that number to 100.
Columbus East and Columbus North are two of the schools who have boys club volleyball teams, and they will meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday at East.
“Some of the guys, this is their only sport,” East coach Josh Duncan said. “A big school like Columbus East or North, it’s hard to get on the basketball team or any team. It’s really competitive. There’s a lot of positive things from being on a sports team. This is another avenue for a lot of kids to be able to partake in that.”
This year, 93 schools are competing in boys volleyball as “emerging” teams. However, East and North are not among those whose schools considered them “emerging” and thus are ineligible for the postseason tournament.
“It’s been kind of a tough season since North didn’t accept us as emerging, so we’re still a club,” North coach Sarah Boldrey said. “It’s a bummer because since it’s club, the boys have to pay out of pocket for jerseys and to rent out space. A lot of the Indianapolis schools aren’t allowed to play us because we’re not emerging. We have a few seniors who have been here awhile, and I didn’t want them to not have a season, so we’re making the most of it. I’m hopeful that we’ll be sanctioned in the future so we don’t have these issues.”
The Bull Dogs have practiced at the new HAVOC facility on the city’s east side. They have not had any home matches.
“The majority of our games were against top-10 teams,” Boldrey said. “That makes it rough on the season, but it makes them better players.”
North has two alumni currently playing at the Division I level. Kurt Nusterer is at Hawaii, and Lwazi Mkhwanazi is at Xavier.
The Bull Dogs’ top players this year are junior middle hitter Emanuel Rubio, junior outside hitter Isaac Riddle and junior setter Aidan Whitley.
“They all really enjoy it, or they wouldn’t be there,” Boldrey said. “I have a few guys that want to play in college. I have a few juniors that are interested, so we have people coming to games to look at them.”
The Columbus East boys volleyball team includes, from left, coach Josh Duncan, Jack Smith, Neri Lopez, Grayson Watters, Alex Duncan, Oliver Carr, Alex Wenzler, Jonathan Ruch, Jake Gilbert, Tyler Ernst and Isaac Going.
Submitted photo
The Olympians’ top players are sophomore hitter/all-around Alex Duncan, junior middle hitter Oliver Carr, junior setter/all-around Jake Gilbert and sophomore setter/all-around Tyler Ernst. They have no seniors.
“I think these guys are all having fun and enjoying it, which is good,” Josh Duncan said. “A lot of times, these guys will be seniors, and they come out and play, and then they’re gone. The way it is now, I think they’ll all want to come back and play again.”
Josh Duncan is in his first year as East coach. His son Alex played last year and has played at HAVOC.
HAVOC coaches Erica Raisor and Becky Baker-Schoen have helped Josh, whose background is in wrestling, with learning the game of volleyball. They’ve also had help from East girls volleyball players Chandler Harris and Lilah Klei, along with Anika Jenkins, who played at Columbus Christian last year and is planning to play for East this fall.
“I’ve had some great help from Erica Raisor,” Josh Duncan said. “She helped me kind of get things set up and gave us preseason workouts there at HAVOC. Becky Baker-Schoen has been coming in and helping me run practices and will come to games and help coach. Between Erica and Becky and Jay Hudson, the volleyball community is just good in that way. They’re trying to grow the sport.”
The Bull Dogs have played eight matches and are coming off their first win Thursday at Indy Genesis. Following Tuesday’s East match, North will conclude its season on Wednesday at Madison.
The Olympians have played 12 matches, plus three Saturday tournaments. They play at Silver Creek on Monday before finishing the season at home against North.
“(East athletics director) Pete Huse has been very good at giving us gym time and letting us have home matches,” Josh Duncan said. “I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s been a good season.”
