There is a difference between this season’s Cordova High School boys volleyball team and the 2016 inaugural squad.

This year’s squad is playing Sierra Valley Conference matches. Although Cordova has been a member of the conference since the start of the 2014-15 school year, last year’s team was formed late to the point Lancers couldn’t play conference matches.

“The first half of the season, the first time we played everyone, I had no idea what to expect from the other teams,” said Cordova head coach Mark Reuter, who also teaches at the campus.

Now the Lancers have found themselves preparing for the Sac-Joaquin Section playoffs. Entering its final SVC game at Lincoln of Lincoln on Wednesday, Cordova is 5-4 in conference and 5-4-2 overall. The ties came at the Davis High School Tournament last month.

One of the Lancers’ conference opponents in Union Mine is 5-5 in the SVC. But the Lancers hold the advantage over the Diamondbacks by winning both matches earlier this season that included a 3-1 win at Cordova on April 27th; the final scores were 25-16, 25-18, 21-25, 25-18. Win or lose to Lincoln, Cordova is in the driver’s seat for the conference’s No. 3 playoff spot, as the section playoffs are scheduled to start next Tuesday.

Seven of the 10 players on the squad are seniors – Alex Kiosa, David Babin, Vitaliy Semenov, Jason Novik, who is one of the team captains. Mark Shcherbanyuk, Nik Trachuk and Daniel Yaikov. Juniors are Allan Volkov, Allen Rogalskiy and Eugene Khramtsov, who is the other team captain.

The process to start a boys volleyball program at Cordova started last year thanks to the persistency of Valeriy Babin, a senior who graduated last spring.

“Since I started (teaching) at Cordova High, many boys had been asking me to do something volleyball related, and my response was they needed to get it started up, and once they did, I would coach,” said Reuter, who has coached college volleyball. “We had 10 players last year, and all the juniors and sophomores from last year returned.”

Cordova, which went 1-8 in 2016, started 3-3 this season. The Lancers have won four of their last conference matches to earn one of the conference’s three playoff berths.

“The second half has allowed me to focus our practices to meet the demands of the other teams,” Reuter said. “All around, these guys have shown marked improvement throughout the year. You would not know that most of these players started playing competitive volleyball for the first time last year. Because of their hard work and competitive attitude, they have made this a winning season.”

When the season started in February, the Lancers had practices 5:30 to 7:30 a.m. Once the Cordova boys and girls basketball teams’ seasons were over – all use the current gym but the school’s new gym is scheduled to open the start of the next school year – the boys volleyball team held practices after school. Part of the hard work Reuter has seen his squad put in practices and matches is being rewarded with post-season action.

“They never complained about morning practices,” Reuter said. “They showed up and put in the work. We’re looking forward to playoffs. As long as we are able to perform consistently at our high level, we’ll be in the race. This group is very fun to coach.”