Matthew Matthies is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover high school sports for AZPreps365.com

The Mountain Pointe boys volleyball team dictated the pace from start to finish at Dobson Tuesday night. The Pride played against the non-conference Mustangs and capped off the victory in three sets, 25-5, 25-7, 25-20. Dobson scored a combined total of 32 points.

Dobson’s gymnasium has a large spherical light dangling from the center of the gym, coupled with six large speakers which interfered with both teams throughout the game. This was frustrating for Dobson as the speakers and the light were on the Mustangs side of the court.

Mountain Pointe had nine different players with kills. As a group they combined for 21 aces and nine errors.  Pride senior star Matthew Luoma racked up ten aces along with six hits.

Mountain Pointe’s head coach Scott Schutkowski said,  “(Luoma’s) so important. He coaches in practice. He gives the guy’s good feedback. He’s the one leading the team in the huddle.”  

Luoma’s main goal is to win a state championship. But he also wants to bring more attention to Mountain Pointe's boys volleyball program and hopes to attract newcomers.
 
“I just want to bring light to the sport and get more people to play,” Luoma said.  “This team is a lot of fun,” “We’re just growing together as a team and it’s a lot of fun to play with them.” 

Dobson’s coach, William Robinson, coached Luoma in club volleyball. In addition, Robinson coaches Dobson’s girls volleyball. His level of expertise dates back to 2013. Robinson is currently the head coach for Aspire, a volleyball club team located in Tempe, Arizona. Both Luoma and Schutkowski have profound respect for Robinson’s history as a head coach.

“We knew they were going to be well coached and were going to be competitive,” said Schutkowski.   

This year is Schutkowski's fourth season as head coach for Mountain Pointe. He has MP currently ranked #2 in the 6A Central division. 

The only sophomore starter for Mountain Pointe was Sterling Knighten. He praised Schutkowski for believing in his play. 

“It shows that he has a lot of confidence in me,” said Knighten. “I can go somewhere with this, especially since I got two more years.”  

Mountain Pointe will host the Sunnyslope (1-4) on Thursday and then travel to Corona del sol (2-1) on March 30.   

Dobson falls to (1-3) after the loss to MP. The Mustangs face off against Queen Creek (4-1) on Thursday at 5:30 pm.