Knights living out volleyball fairy tale

Published online on Thursday, Apr. 24, 2008

The most remarkable story in Valley high school sports this spring -- or is it this year? -- can be found at Palm and Barstow avenues, where they have a legendary coach, wear two shades of blue and have been known to make the other teams' parents see red.

Go, for example, to Santa Barbara, where moms and dads raise babies with pacifiers stuck in their mouths and volleyballs in their hands, and push Cadillac-like strollers with bumper stickers reading: "Side Out."

The sport is big in Southern California's beach culture, it has been for generations, and there's just no way you're going to lose to those guys from Bullard in northwest Fresno, who wear some light blue, some dark blue and -- bottom line -- don't begin playing the game until high school.

And it's incomprehensible to lose to them when you're ranked second in the nation like Santa Barbara High.

But, hey, how did that scoreboard read Friday night? And in the Dons' own packed gym, no less?

Bullard: 25-21, 13-25, 25-12, 22-25, 15-13.

"The match of the day," writes Kirstin Olsen of StudentSportsVolleyball. "It was an absolute knock down, drag out fight to the finish."

It occurred in the Karch Kiraly Tournament of Champions, a 16-team event that attracted 10 schools ranked among the nation's top 50.

Bullard finished fourth, Clovis West seventh and Buchanan 10th.

Those three, along with Clovis, have won every Central Section boys volleyball championship since the first one in 1991.

Their local competition is primarily against each other, given the fact that 20 of the section's 88 schools (23%) sponsor boys volleyball.

The sport's progress in the section "is moving at a glacial rate," says Bob McCarthy, Clovis West's coach and a United States Volleyball Association official for 15 years. "It's been a little frustrating to see new high schools in the Valley who aren't adding boys volleyball."

Not a section school south of Highway 198 plays the sport.

So we hear all the excuses: finances, gender equity, gym space.

And then the hammer, as dropped by Mark Wyatt, director of school support services in the Kern High School District: "There's never been a real push down here."

Why?

McCarthy has the answer: "I think it's a little cooler to play [boys] volleyball in Southern California than [the Valley], let's face it. And the talent pool is certainly greater, not to say we don't get good athletes. We have a small pool of talent, but they're making a national impact."

Consider UC-Irvine's NCAA championship men's team of last year.

The Anteaters received contributions from Clovis West graduates John Steller and Matt Delotto, and Buchanan's Aaron Harrell. And Steller and Harrell are starting again this season.

They are products of Clovis Unified School District, which begins grooming players in the sport in elementary school.

Not so at Bullard of Fresno Unified. And that's what makes the Knights' story all the more fascinating.

Take Hunter Knight (happens to be his name), a senior outside hitter who made all-tournament at Santa Barbara.

He didn't touch a volleyball in organized play until his sophomore season.

"I played once at a church camp," he says.

But he's playing now for Roy Verduzco, the conductor of that sweet volleyball music played for a quarter-century at Bullard.

"I guess," Knight says, "all those things I've been taught have come together.

This is one of those seasons fit for framing, and no one deserves it more than Verduzco -- purely professional, enormously successful and, yet, agreeably anonymous: "I don't like being in the limelight."

In 25 years at Bullard, he's won 535 matches, lost 91 and holds the state record for consecutive league championships with 19.

And, again, he hasn't accomplished this coaching players with sand in their toes and fathers who played the sport at UCLA.

"Pretty impressive," McCarthy says, "considering Roy doesn't have elementary schools to feed him."

Not to suggest Verduzco is complaining about his material. It's a veteran collection that promises to be tough to beat in May's playoffs. And, if history repeats itself, they'll be played in packed houses against Clovis Unified schools.

Verduzco's top seven players are seniors, including four-year performers in swing hitters Jordan Burriss and Campbell Fourchy, and libero Brendan Mills.

The middle features Zach Heager, the most dynamic of all with a 42-inch vertical jump, and Case Jones, who makes few mistakes -- no surprise from the school's highest-ranked valedictorian with a 4.32 grade-point average.

Justin Burriss, Jordan's twin brother, may be the section's best setter.

"What we've been able to do for years," Verduzco says, "is train them consistently and the right way to play the game.

"That's what we have to do to play catch-up here at Bullard."