CVCHS volleyball Digs Pink for breast cancer awareness

There was a thrilling high school volleyball match last Thursday evening at Clayton Valley Charter High with the Eagles edging College Park. It was a match that went the full five sets, included a long delay due to a player injury and saw Eagles junior setter Sarah Williams set a school single-game record with 46 assists.

But all of that was secondary to the fact that CVCHS coach Dave Hobson and volunteers organized the second annual Dig Pink event benefitting the Side-Out Foundation as part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Hobson began the Dig Pink event last year and the effort was able to raise $1500. This year the funds raised jumped to $2,500 and the team is already looking ahead to doing it again in October, 2014.

Dig Pink was started as a volleyball-specific fundraiser but Side-Out has expanded it to include volleyball and other events at 500 colleges and 1,500 high school and middle schools this year with a goal of raising $2 million. Side-Out awards grants to medical research organizations and entities dedicated to providing compassionate support to breast cancer patients and their families.

In tune with this month’s theme, CVCHS players were all outfitted in pink uniform shirts while meet announcer Brandon Enriquez was resplendent in pink tie and vest. There was unprecedented student support leading up to the match and in the stands at Dan Della Gym.

Each CVCHS coach and player dedicated their participation to a person close to them – living or dead – touched by cancer. The list on honorees included moms, dads, aunts and uncles, cousins, grandmas and grandpas, great-grandmas, grandpas and aunts, teachers and friends. Hobson recognized his wife Lisa’s sister, Barbara Barbieri Lowell.

Event coordinator Rosa Sanchez-Yokoyama published a 20-page program for the game and her committee got donated raffle prizes and sponsors from the community to help in the fund-raising effort.

The final score

As for the game, Clayton Valley won 25-16, 24-26, 24-26, 25-21, 15-12 to improve its Diablo Valley Athletic League record to 6-3 and overall to 13-9. With the College Park bus late getting to Clayton Valley, a lengthy break due to the injury and the contest going five sets, the match lasted until 10 p.m. Kayla Taylor had 20 kills and six aces, Hailey Pascoe had 19 kills, three blocks and five digs while Jessica Stratton added 16 digs and Ariana Bermudez seven aces.

Senior Night

CVCHS volleyball Senior Night is this Thursday at 6:30 p.m. against Northgate. The DVAL league schedule concludes next week and then the team enters the DVAL tournament Nov. 5 and 7 at Ygnacio Valley High as the Eagles hope to make it to the North Coast Section playoffs.

“I am tremendously proud to have been able to be a part of the night,” a pink-haired Hobson said at the end of the evening. “The girls, and all of us really, are learning a life lesson in giving.”