By: Brendan O’Toole ‘21
Zach Crennen is a typical Regis Jesuit sophomore with a pretty normal life. At home he’s got two wonderful parents and an older brother enrolled at Mesa university. He even looks up to his mom as a role model, “My moms been a big inspiration to me because she works really hard.”
Crennen says he came to Regis Jesuit for the community and the brotherhood. Since he’s been here he’s become involved in a new sport, volleyball. He had been introduced to volleyball through his family who liked to play it at family events like barbecues and reunions. He’d never been involved with any actual volleyball for a club or school team, but he decided to give it a shot during his freshman year at Regis.
Boys volleyball is a relatively new Regis Jesuit sport, but the camaraderie of the team is quickly growing. Crennen says that this is happening because, “everybody’s kind of new to it and we’re all kind of learning. The coaches are learning, the athletes are learning, I think everybody’s learning and that we kind of bond through that.”
Crennen says he’s bonded with a lot of new friends that he never would’ve met off the court, “I think a lot of it is the seniors, it’s going to be sad to see them go, but I like the seniors a lot and I would’ve never talked to them if it wasn’t for volleyball.”
Boys volleyball is an extremely new sport in the state of Colorado. Regis Jesuit was one of the first schools to start the initiative to make boys volleyball a CHSAA approved sport. Whether it’s officially a club sport or a real sport, the team is trying to improve from last season.
Volleyball was not a very successful sport last season. The junior varsity team went 1-15 while the varsity team went 1-21. This year they hope to improve their record with more than one win. A big part of this process is practice which is a very involved time.
Crennen described their numerous daily tasks: “We’d do our stretches where we go up and down the court. Then we’ll do lunges and leg stretches and then we’ll just throw the balls just kind of between each other just to stretch out our arms. Then we’ll do some drills on passing, hitting drills, and some serving. We kind of do that a lot, and then we’ll do some scrimmaging.”
Crennen believes that last year the team struggled last year because of an overall lack of height and poor communication. He believes they’ll work on the communication and that a lot more taller players are joining the program this year.
Overall, Crennen is optimistic and filled with belief about his team in this upcoming season. When asked how he overall felt about the season he said, “It’s definitely gonna be a lot of fun and this season with our taller guys I think we have a lot of potential talent, and I think we might do well this year. The whole coaching staff is different from last year so I don’t know how that’s going to impact it, but we’re hoping for the best.”