Head volleyball coach Rafael Cabanzon reports that the Miami High boys volleyball team has had outstanding achievements during the 2021-22 school year.  He first reported that “the beginning of the year was looking very prosperous as many of the previous members of the team had a lot of time to prepare for the season.” This year they were able to play against some of the best teams in Miami-Dade and gain a lot of recognition from other great coaches. Coach Ralphy is also pleased with the immense progress and major improvements they’ve gained, such as their serve-receive skills and attacking skills. He says, “They’ve become very united, and their teamwork has improved. There’s not a time where you won’t see them together in school.”  

   One of their greatest achievements during the 2021-22 school year was winning the GMAC tournament, making them the first high school volleyball team from Miami High to ever win.  

Winning player of the year is hitter Denzel Madrigal, and winning first team All-Dade is starting setter Gabriel Cabanzon. One of their newest players this year was sophomore Jefferson Moreno who played as their starting middle blocker/attacker, which is one of the hardest positions to play, but Jefferson was able to provide enough competition to help better his team. Another new player this year was Eduardo Hernandez who is a right-side and outside hitter, one of the most important hitters, and he was a very crucial part to the team.  

   A lot of the seniors on the team are getting college offers to play volleyball such as Bryan Meraz, outside hitter and right-side hitter, who has two offers, Denzel Madrigal who’s committed himself to Blue-Field University, and Eduardo Hernandez who’s committed himself to Clark University. Other seniors are working on connecting with other coaches and colleges.  

       Coach Ralphy also recognizes the help of the assistant coaches: “Without them we wouldn’t be where we are.” They helped the head coach with film to be able to “dissect” what was done right or wrong and give feedback to the players or work on adjustments as well as “extra-eyes” to catch something the head coach may have missed. It is thanks to them that they were also able to have a junior varsity team and turn out to be the best JV volleyball team in Miami-Dade County and Broward County. Coach Ralphy says, “Since most of our varsity is seniors, a lot of our JV has to step up.” 

  One of the major setbacks this school year was losing at the state quarter finals, which was something that they highly expected to pass. The team that they lost to had won the whole thing but even still they were able to play a lot of the best high school volleyball teams in the district. Another setback was during the season when “two giant pieces to our team” missed 6 games due to injury and sickness. Coach Ralphy says, “They lost higher stats, so we had a lower ranking meaning there were harder teams for us to play.” Last year the team had won 26 games, and this year they won 24. Although they won fewer games this year, they were able to play much more challenging teams many of which they played more than once such as: Cardinal Gibbons, Southwest, Freedom, South Broward, and Lake Mary. A lot of the teams they went up against also made it to state which shows the level of intensity there was this year. But to get to where they got Coach Ralphy says, “They all worked super hard for it.”