Pair of Sonoma County high schools launch beach volleyball programs

Finley Park in Santa Rosa was the site of a first-of-its-kind meeting between Cardinal Newman and Windsor on Monday.

The Cardinals defeated the Jaguars 3-1 in beach volleyball, but everyone involved with the growing sport considered themselves winners.

The dual match was the first time two local schools competed against each other in beach volleyball since the sport first began on an organized level in the area a few years ago.

While it’s still in its infancy in the North Bay, with only a handful of schools in Sonoma, Marin and Napa fielding teams, local coaches believe that Monday’s dual match was a landmark moment that will help the sport continue to grow.

“I kind of let the kids know, this is a special event because it takes two to tango in the county and the groundswell is getting bigger with other schools wanting to start club teams,” Cardinal Newman head coach Daryl Kapis said.

Kapis, who is also the founder and CEO of Aloha Beach Volleyball Club, has been monumental in getting beach volleyball off the ground at the high school level in the North Bay. He founded his club program in 2020, after a 30-year career in collegiate coaching, and kick-started Cardinal Newman’s program. Since then, others around the county have started to follow suit.

Windsor fielded its first team this year while other schools like Ukiah, Sonoma Valley and Santa Rosa have expressed interest in doing the same.

Officially, the Cardinals and other programs in the region compete as clubs, similar to a school’s robotics or debate team. The sport is officially sanctioned by the California Interscholastic Federation, the state’s governing body for high school sports, and is widely played in Southern California, but Northern California programs have opted to go the club route because it’s easier to operate outside of the CIF, explained Kapis.

“We’re trying to grow the sport and when the CIF puts lots of restrictions on things it limits potential participation,” he said.

In the North Bay, Justin-Siena in Napa — along with San Domenico, Redwood and Branson in Marin; also have teams. With the development of more programs in Sonoma, Kapis said he hopes to start a league with all the North Bay club teams within a year or so.

Before Monday, local teams mainly competed in out-of-area tournaments or in dual matches against teams from Napa and Marin. But that could all be changing as more programs get started.

“In five years I think most of the high schools around here will have a beach volleyball team,” said Mike Smith, Windsor’s head beach volleyball coach and the president and co-founder of Ragle Beach Volleyball, an all-ages nonprofit program based in Sebastopol.

Smith has been around the community beach volleyball scene for years and his work through his nonprofit, which he founded in 2021, has helped Ragle Park double its number of courts from two to four. Smith previously coached beach volleyball at Cal and is hoping to grow the sport from the youth level.

Both Smith and Kapis identified several benefits that beach volleyball offers in comparison to the indoor version. Playing on sand reduces injury, they’ve found, and the two-on-two playing style helps players develop more well-rounded skills than traditional indoor volleyball.

“There’s two players who have to do every single skill, so by playing beach volleyball you develop to be a really good all-around player for both indoor and beach,” Smith said. “You’ll see a lot of the best indoor players also play beach because they practice those skills they otherwise might not get to practice on an indoor team.”

It’s also in many ways more accessible, with lower participation fees and less travel.

“Everybody is seeing this very inexpensive, less intrusive on peoples’ lives, less travel way for the kids who love volleyball to play more volleyball over the spring,” Kapis said. “… This is a way more inclusive way to include kids who can’t afford travel volleyball. That’s why I’m excited about it.”

Both coaches also spoke about a number of hurdles that still remain as they try to push the sport’s growth, mainly the lack of sand courts in the area. Windsor plays and practices at Finley while Cardinal Newman makes its home at a community court in Rohnert Park. They hope as more and more schools begin teams, it will lead to more courts being built.

You can reach Staff Writer Gus Morris at 707-304-9372 or gus.morris@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @JustGusPD.