Spring starts boys volleyball at NHS

There is a new sport in town as the new all-St. Vrain Valley School District boys volleyball team takes shape under experienced and seasoned coach John Miller.

The "Niwot" team is comprised of athletes from multiple St. Vrain Valley School District high schools including Silver Creek High School, Longmont High School, and Erie High School. The team has students from as far away as Mead High School. The students travel daily to practice, which begins a little later than school gets out to allow for travel time.

After a Covid-shortened first-ever season of boys volleyball in 2020, things are finally re-setting and getting back to normal. This spring, over sixty boys tried out for Niwot's team in what will be the first year of CHSAA-sanctioned boys volleyball.

"We had a really tremendous turnout with a bunch of really talented kids who I expect will be really competitive," said Coach John Miller at practice last week as the team got ready for the first two matches, at Riverdale Ridge High School on Tuesday, March 7 before taking on Mountain View High School March 9 at home. Miller said he had such a good turnout of boys he was able to form a developmental team and a C-team, along with varsity and junior varsity squads.

Having so many players and so many young and improving up-and-comers will be critical in building a competitive program. Miller projects the varsity lineup to include Cooper Chudleigh (10, Erie), Jenu Ngialah (10, Erie), Sage Xiong (11, Erie), Max Owens, 11, Erie), Gabe Victor (9, Apex), Jack West (12, Niwot), and Kaiden Box (12, Skyline).

"I am anxiously looking forward to this season as we begin our league matches this week," Miller said. "We have an athletic group of players who are working hard to make the program something special. Their attitudes have been very good as they work together to build what will hopefully be a very strong boys volleyball program in St. Vrain for some time to come."

Miller, who also serves as Silver Creek High School's girls volleyball head coach, currently teaches health at Silver Creek. He played collegiately at East Stroudsburg University, Pennsylvania, from 1980-1983, and was part of the AAU Volleyball National Championship team in 1981. He has been a teacher for 21 years, and has over 25 years of coaching volleyball.