Wendy Heredia has played Club Volleyball since she was in middle school because her older sister had been on a team when she was in middle school. Heredia followed in her sister’s footsteps and continues to play for her off-campus team.

A day in Heredia’s practices for Club Volleyball includes going to the club and doing regular volleyball practices, and planning out what they’re going to do for a tournament. When they participate in a tournament, Heredia has to wake up at around 5 am because she’s expected to get to the destination early, at 6 am and they might stay until 8 pm. It can be challenging and things don’t always go smoothly. “You really have to shift from having problems with someone to becoming a teammate and just being a group altogether,” she said. Those issues have helped her become a better player.

One of the rules that Heredia explained about volleyball is that there are only three touches when the ball is on one side of the net, and a player can only touch the ball once before another player has to touch it. After that, the first player can touch it again, but it has to go over the net by the third touch.

Another rule that is important is that the players can’t hit the net, or the team will lose a point.

If the ball goes out of bounds and it is caused by the team on the other side of the net, that team will lose a point.

If this all sounds familiar, it is because it is just like traditional volleyball, even though it is not for a school team. In both club teams and school teams, there is a boys’ and a girls’ squad but they never play against each other in tournaments unless the club does it for fun. Really, the only difference between playing on a school team and playing on a club team is that the club teams have more tournaments and games than on-campus volleyball. Heredia said that some of their tournaments, and even some of their games, are sometimes played out-of-state, including Nevada. Her younger sister is on a team that is going to play in the state of Washington this season.

Heredia enjoys playing club volleyball and may continue during college, but felt she might be tired of it after college since she has been playing for so long and her parents have been paying money to get in club volleyball. After High School, she plans to go to USFC/University of San Francisco, she wants to play volleyball, and she wants to plan on being a veterinarian.