Reece Andrews is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Mesa High School for AZPreps365.com

Beach Volleyball is one of the fastest growing sports in Arizona. This year marks the 10-year anniversary since beach volleyball was sanctioned for high school sports in the state.

In that little time the game has continued to evolve to the “Hawaiian Style,” according to Mesa High School girls’ beach volleyball head coach Kiana Hiapo. 

“Coming in there, this year especially, and having to reformat their indoor play to beach now they have like a cool, calm, collected, almost Hawaiian, beachy style,” Hiapo said.

As of now, beach volleyball is only available in high schools for girls to play but Mesa’s Athletic Director Jay Schnittger, the game is looking to expand.

“It's increasing in popularity as the venues are being built … I think it’s starting to generate awareness and then I think student athletes are starting to say, ‘Hey that’s something I might want to do,’” he said. “I know the state and our district is looking for the possibility of boys being involved in sand as well,” Schnittger said.

One of the newest venues in the state comes from Mesa itself thanks to a $35 million bond renovation by General Acrylics including two new softball fields, astroturf in the football stadium, nine new tennis courts (two with pickleball capabilities) and two buildings for the school along with the new beach volleyball courts. 

Junior split blocker Rylynn Dixon has been at Mesa for three years now and has gotten to see how the program has evolved and changed within recent years and especially with the new courts.

“It's been really nice. Just before the courts were all rocky and stuff so you couldn’t really practice how you’d play in a game but since we have our own courts we’re able to better prepare for games,” Dixon said.

Before getting their new courts the Jackrabbits practiced on sand pits in between portable classrooms and played their games on Xavier High School’s courts, but finally getting their courts allows them to build a culture at their school and give other students a chance to see if beach volleyball is something they’d like to try out. 

Having their own courts also comes with upkeep and maintenance which is handled by the Mesa grounds crew. 

“Every evening we rake, we rake in the morning and then depending on the temperature level it depends how often we water it … it’s probably being watered three to four times a day,” said Schnittger. 

Hiapo, daughter of the indoor boys/girls varsity head coach Vee Hiapo and Hawai’i native, comes from a beach volleyball lineage with her grandfather being a part of the club where modern beach volleyball was created so she knows a thing or two about the upkeep and maintenance. 

“The upkeep though is really important just because it's the desert and usually on the beach … it has a lot of rain on it and if it erods then there's just more shells in the ocean that wash up on the beach and it replenishes itself but in the desert its really dry and the winds just take the top layer of sad which essentially just turns it into dirt so there are a lot of eroding problems,” Hiapo said.

She emphasized the importance of high quality sand for the girls but unfortunately the high quality sand only comes with success just like many other high school sports. The Jackrabbit have gotten off to a rough start as a team going 1-4 but Hiapo says they have some hopeful state contenders in the future.

Schnittger said they will assess the conditions of the courts at the end of the year and see how they need to go about replacing the sand for the next season. 

“We’re going to have to take a look with our maintenance crew at the end of the year to see if we’re going to have to order new sand for the following year but right now that’s the sand that was put in with the facility being built about a year ago,” Schnittger said.