Everyone wants to be Leah\u2019s partner,” laughs Lynne Galli, third-year coach of La Jolla Country Day women\u2019s sand volleyball, of setter Leah Tauber. “Setters in indoor volleyball have to move all over the court, so they\u2019re fast. Setters can also make something good out of a bad pass.”
\nTauber and partner Anna Shaul have played as one of the Torreys\u2019 “A” (top) combinations this spring season. She was rehabbing a knee from an injury last year, so the sky\u2019s the limit from here on.
\n“You have to communicate when you\u2019re hitting about what part of the court you\u2019re going to cover defensively,” says Leah, a junior. Galli cites communication as one of her three teaching emphases, along with strategy and fundamentals
\nKiki Gestring-Smith, a junior who pairs with senior Faith Fayman, “is also an \u2018A\u2019 teamer because she\u2019s dynamic,” says her coach, “explosive in the sand. She gets to a lot of balls, and makes a lot of game-changing plays. Kiki has an understanding of the two-person (sand) game.”
\nGestring-Smith, who plans to be a marine biologist (“I\u2019ve always liked the ocean,” shesays) “I like sand volleyball because of the grit you put into it. If you want to be good, you have to go for it.”
\nGalli on Shaul: “Anna\u2019s a great leader. She\u2019s very calm on the court. She has a lot of experience playing club sand volleyball. As one of our two lefties, she creates a great shot. It goes into the wind (and is harder to receive).”
\nFayman: “Faith is just a great athlete. She has good overall skill on both offense and on defense. She shows a lot of passion. She dives for a lot of balls, which I really appreciate.”
\nSenior Madi Twomney: “This is Madi\u2019s third year playing sand. She\u2019s a hard worker. She has good energy on the court, and she\u2019s very versatile. She\u2019s played with many players, older, younger.”
\nSenior Darya Daneshmand: “She\u2019s another third-year player (all three of Galli\u2019s years coaching LJCDS). Darya\u2019s a hustler. She works hard in practice. She\u2019s a shorter player, and she specializes in defense. She gets a lot of points off her serve.”
\nJunior Ali Nunez-Beringer: “She\u2019s a very enthusiastic player, always smiling through the good and the bad. Ali\u2019s our other lefty, so she has really good angles on her shots and her serve. She\u2019s one of the few still playing indoor as well, so she\u2019s aggressive.”
\nSophomore Alexcia Doak: “It\u2019s her first year in sand volleyball. She played indoor this year. She\u2019s very energetic and vocal, which is important in beach. She seems to have a passion for beach volleyball. She\u2019s been in a musical (Les Miz) on campus, with five-hour rehearsals.”
\nSophomore Mia Muzquiz: “It\u2019s her first year on the sand. She played indoor this year. She also is in the play (musical), so from what I\u2019ve seen she has good potential. She also plays softball, so she\u2019s at a softball game right now (during the interview). She\u2019ll play in our next match (on Thursdays).”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Everyone wants to be Leah\u2019s partner,” laughs Lynne Galli, third-year coach of La Jolla Country Day women\u2019s sand volleyball, of setter Leah Tauber. “Setters in indoor volleyball have to move all over the court, so they\u2019re fast. Setters can also make something good out of a bad pass.” Tauber and partner Anna Shaul have played […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":267555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"\u2018The Talented Nine\u2019 at La Jolla Country Day","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11551,11553],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-news","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}