Girls Volleyball Team Wins CIF Championship Title

Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947. Edmund Hillary and his sherpa, Tenzig Norgay were the first to summit Mt. Everest in 1953. In 1954, Roger Bannister ran a mile in under four minutes for the first time in recorded history. And on Friday, November 18, 2022 the Berean Christian Girls Volleyball team won the CIF Volleyball Championship for the first time in BCHS’s history.

After splitting the first two sets of the match, the team fell behind in the fifth set. This group of athletes, led by just two seniors – Aunyka Uresti and Rebeca Freitas – is young. The opportunity to panic or tighten up in critical moments hung in the air. Lucas Abbott, the team’s head coach reminded them that they belonged there, they had earned a place in this gym. This moment was for them. 

They battled in the fifth set, but still found themselves facing a match point that could send them home without the title. Calmly, they won the next two points to tie the set at 14. Just a few minutes later the team was overwhelmed by screaming fans who poured out of the bleachers in chaotic celebration. Their storied season ended with a 17-15 fifth set victory to make them CIF champions. It was a moment that the players, and the fans will no doubt remember forever.

“The best part about this team is that they are gritty, they have fun, and they encourage each other,” says Athletic Director, LaShawn Wells. The team doesn’t have a single player over 5’9” tall. They just know how to dig and fight and love the game. Their hearts make up for their height.

In this Sports Stars article, Coach Abbott talks about The Berean Way, which he describes as a community of people who are “there for each other”. He says it’s different and special. “We have pretty good athletes,” he says. “But we have amazing people [at Berean].”

In the middle of the twentieth century most of the world thought that running a mile in under four minutes was impossible – beyond the human body’s capacity. Less than two months after Roger Bannister did it, Australian runner John Landry beat Bannister’s record-setting time to set a new record. More than 1,000 runners have since run sub-4-minute miles.

The 2022 Berean Christian Girls Volleyball players brought home the team’s first division and CIF championship banners to the Eagle’s gymnasium. Many may have thought this kind of success with such a young team was out of reach. Not since 2004 when the girls softball team won a CIF title has Berean had the chance to celebrate a state championship team. The people who doubted were wrong. And now that this scrappy young team has made the impossible possible, we may see more teams and players from Berean earn a chance to represent The Berean Way on a championship stage in the near future.