By: Matthew Du, Staff Writer

From October 15th to October 25th, Mills Spirit Planning Committee organized their first Fall Volleyball Tournament of the year to encourage school spirit and promote fun activities for students. The Fall Volleyball Tournament took place on the outside volleyball courts during lunch for the week. 

There were 11 teams consisting of 10 players on each team. Each team was only allowed 50% Varsity volleyball players and a maximum of three Varsity players could play at the same time. The teams that played in the tournament are the Ninja Turtles, Pookie Bears, The Bats, Dream Team, Bumpkin Boskis, SoCal Asians, the Elite, Talokans, Lost Battalions, Alpha Sigma Bowls, and Karasuno HS. The Bats, Karasuno HS, and Alpha Sigma Bowls have byes and did not play anyone in the first round. 

Each team was placed into a bracket with single elimination where the team that has the most points by the end of lunch wins. The winners of each bracket played each other in the next round until there were two final teams remaining. The winner of that would be then crowned champion. Unfortunately, there will not be a reward for the winner since this tournament is just for fun. 

The tournament follows standard volleyball rules. Mills Spirit Planning Committee member, Lucas Hom (10) said, “It’s normal volleyball rules. So rotations, but we’re not too crazy on like the actual rotation part, we just care if the server rotates.” 

The way that this volleyball tournament was organized was by first creating a Google Form asking students to state their team name and who is going to be on their team. Then, they looked at the students’ Google Form responses to create the bracket. Next, they communicated with their advisor, Ms. Dove, and the administration to set up the dates and times. They also talked with Athletic Director Mr. Keller to use the outdoor volleyball courts, and Leadership to spread it around through Instagram and KVIK announcements. 

The purpose of the tournament was for students to have fun, have something to do during lunch, something to look forward to, bring people together, connect students to meet new people, promote school spirit, and something for the students to do in the fall according to the Spirit Committee. 

“This was an activity that we started a couple years ago. We saw how popular our Spring Basketball tournament was…Just to give students something fun to look forward to, and bring people together. October tends to be kind of a long month. We got a lot of student stress, our seniors are applying to colleges, everyone else is just tired. 
So something fun to look forward to, I think it’s a big thing.” said Ms. Dove, student body advisor and activities director.  

Mills Spirit Committee Member, Evan Kang (10) mentioned, “Lots of people like volleyball in our school. This tournament is there for people to have fun.” 

Kylie Huynh (11) of Spirit Committee added, “Just to connect students and also they can meet new people that way, too…it just creates a really positive community.” 

The Mills Spirit Committee has done a lot in terms of preparation before the tournament and getting the games together. “They created the Google Form for sign ups. They organize the brackets, based off of the responses and they’re out every day reffing the games. Also setting up, so they bring out all the materials. We also go and make sure that we clean up after ourselves because this is also used by the PE department.” said Ms. Dove  

Although it may seem like an easy task to set up a tournament and create a bracket, they encountered a problem. There were an odd number of teams. There were 11 teams instead of an even number. The Mills Spirit Committee tackled the issue by giving “some teams had byes and we basically just put it randomly,” said Kang (10) 

“But it ended up working out,” said Maranda Santos (12), Mills Spirit Committee Leader.

This tournament was a huge success, lots of students showed up, and were playing in the tournament. All the students had fun and it was a good time for everybody. 

I briefly caught up with Messiah Lacsamana (9) who played on Team Dream Team after the game and asked him about his thoughts on the tournament. “I felt like it was a little unfair and the refs were terrible…but the game was fun. ” expressed Messiah Lacsamana (9) in frustration following a brutal 20-16 loss after leading the first 10 minutes of the game. He also added that he would likely play in the tournament next year. 

This is a yearly tournament and will most likely be continued next year. While this tournament is over, students can expect more fun activities from the Mills Spirit Committee throughout the school year to show off their school spirit! 

“We try to do something once a month, so a spirit day and a lunch activity…We always have something for everyone.” said Santos.