High school boys volleyball: Pleasant Grove takes historic win over Mountain View in the first-ever UHSAA sanctioned match

In March of 2022, the UHSAA board of trustees voted to approve boys volleyball as an official UHSAA-sanctioned sport. It was a long time coming, as high school boys volleyball club teams and leagues have increased in popularity throughout the state.

On Monday the dream was finally realized as Pleasant Grove hosted the first-ever sanctioned boys volleyball match against Mountain View, and the Vikings took the first-ever win with a 3-0 sweep.

“It’s fun to have this moment finally arrive,” said Pleasant Grove head coach Dave Neeley. “We’ve been waiting more than 13 months, and having it here was awesome. I didn’t know what to expect and it was fun, a big crowd from both teams. This is high school sports and now these boys get to experience this.”

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The festivities began with videos from UCLA and USA men’s volleyball head coach John Speraw, Olympic gold medalist Karch Kiraly and BYU men’s volleyball alumni Taylor Sander and Ryan Millar all giving their congratulations to Utah high school boys volleyball receiving sanctioned sport status.

Once the action started, it felt different than just a club match.

The first point came off an ace from Pleasant Grove’s Tyson Jarvis, who ended the night with five aces while also being a force on the net with nine kills.

Jarvis is a senior for the Vikings and has played on the club team for the past two years. He said the change in atmosphere was dramatic.

“It’s great. I wish it could’ve come earlier but now is great, too,” he said. “It’s been good and it’s only going to get better as the season goes. The atmosphere is way different. So many people were here. It’s awesome.”

Pleasant Grove quickly built a 10-3 lead in the opening set, which it rode all the way to a 25-12 first-set win.

However, some nerves and mistakes in the second set made things much closer, although the Vikings took a 25-21 second set win.

“Hopefully over time the sloppiness will go away,” Neeley said. “We’ve only practiced five days, but moving forward we have more match days than practice days, so there’s not a ton of time to practice so we’re going to clean things up during matches as much as possible but hopefully the level will rise throughout the season.”

In the third set Jarvis showed out with five kills, resulting in the set win for the 3-0 sweep.

“Boys volleyball is going to give us a lot of moments like that throughout the next several months,” Neeley said. “There are some good athletes in this state and guys that can jump high and hit hard, so it’s an exciting time.

“I think everyone that’s here thought, ‘Wow, this is a legit sport with legit players’ and we’re going to get legit shows every night.”