Arop Kual is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Deer Valley High School for AZPreps365.com.

The odds for a team to win back-to-back championships aren't always great. With a first-year head coach, it is likely that much more difficult but Cade McGee has accepted the challenge. McGee is taking the role as the head coach for the defending 4A boys volleyball state champions Deer Valley.

McGee has experience coaching volleyball spending the last two years coaching at the club level. McGee is a former player having competed for the last decade. 

“It’s interesting, it is more responsibility than I thought but I have a great group of kids even with the amount of seniors who graduated last year I am excited to see what we can do this year,” McGee said.

Even with this being his first year with the team the players have formed a bond with each other and their coach.

“He is caring towards the team, he really pushes us to win and I really appreciate that,” outside hitter Theodore Holsinger said.

Holsinger was part of the state championship winning team from last season, he is now taking a bigger role in the team as he is one of the captains as a junior.

“I think there has been a pretty good change, obviously each coach has their characteristics but we still have a good shot this year,” he said.

“He is really outgoing, he is not scared to push us, which I feel like new coaches are scared of, I love that about him,” said junior and team captain Dillion Buss, who added that while McGee is different from the previous head coach, they were able to build chemistry together throughout the four years but he is working towards that.

“I 100 percent believe that we can go back to back, it is supposed to be a rebuilding year, our athletic trainer told coach when he got hired to be prepared to lose and that was really disrespectful,” Buss stated.

The team took the criticism and lack of faith from those on the outside as motivation to defend not only themselves but their coach as well.

“The team mentality is different, at first it was down including me but it is definitely growing. He has brought us together, they point us out no matter what in game and film,” Buss stated.

“I think it was hard for some of us to adapt to it but honestly I think our coach is easy to adapt to. He is really nice and he doesn’t make it difficult,” Holsinger stated.

“We were a very inexperienced team from the start, we didn’t have a lot of games together but now we are playing as a team,” McGee said.

Hoilsinger feels like they have learned a lot under McGee and there is belief in going back to back winning the state championship.

“The effort has improved, we were scared in the first half but after some tournaments our confidence went up,” Buss stated.