Veronica Qiu

Senior Ellie Roth prepares to receive the ball during the staff-versus-student volleyball game. The staff defeated the students, 31-23, in Palo Alto High School’s annual students-versus-staff volleyball game on Tuesday in the Peery Center. According to junior William Yao, the volleyball match added to a growing sense of Paly spirit and is a way of community bonding. “Spirit week is a good reminder to students to always have like faith and school spirit,” Yao said. “I feel like this match was really helpful to a general student body.” (Photo: Veronica Qiu)

Staff dominated over students, 31-23, in Palo Alto High School’s annual students-versus-staff volleyball game Tuesday in the Peery Center Big Gym.

The staff team consistently outperformed the students in a four-set volleyball match, securing a 10-5 lead in the opening set. Despite the students’ efforts, the gap widened to 18-10 by the second set, and 26-14 in the third. The final set concluded with the staff’s victory at 31-23, marking a match notable for strategic play.

According to junior Tyler Kramer, who was a part of the student team, the reason for the students’ loss could be because of a lack of teamwork and preparation before the match.

“The most challenging part was the difficulty working together as a team as students,” Kramer said. “There was a lot of miscommunication. If we had had time to talk it over before, we could’ve not had a ton of errors that we had.”

Math teacher Daniel Nguyen helped the staff with their comeback after the defeat they suffered in the staff-student basketball game during the Winter Rally in January.

“We got revenge from the staff-student basketball game this year, so we’re proud of ourselves,” Nguyen said.

The volleyball match brought out a sense of competitiveness between the staff and students, but contributed to creating a more tightly-knit community. According to Kramer, the friendly rivalry enhances the community building at Paly.

“Rivalry can often bring people together, especially when you have a rivalry as long as students versus staff,” Kramer said. “It’s really fun to be able to see all your buddies and all the people that you don’t really know enjoying themselves, and everybody comes together for this and goes against the staff that you always see in this really professional light.

Paly’s Associated Student Body Director Steven Gallagher said he could not have put together the event without ASB’s officers’ help.

“More or less, we went based off of last year’s model,” Gallagher said. “Hannah [An Jensen], the Spirit commissioner, and Simone [Batra] put it together. They reached out to a couple people to be coaches for varsity. I got the staff to be out here and it was just a matter of putting it all together.”

According to Gallagher, the volleyball game helped contribute to the school’s sense of spirit and community.

“Little things are enough for people to come together,” Gallagher said. “No matter how small or how big, it always leads to more spirit, more camaraderie and positive things like that.”