Hughson beats Sonora for first volleyball section title in school history

Potential was what Sarah Beers saw in her first few days as the new head coach of the Hughson High volleyball team this summer.

She saw players with skill and work ethic but knew the team wouldn’t reach its championship potential until everyone believed they could compete for a blue banner. Beers, who won section titles at Big Valley Christian with multiple deep playoff runs, thought a section championship game was in the cards for this Hughson group, vocalizing the lofty goal to Principal Loren Lighthall.

But the million-dollar question was when. It couldn’t possibly be this year, right?

“I wasn’t confident confident,” Beers said on whether the team would win in her first season as head coach, “but I knew it was a possibility.”

Fast-forward a few months and not only were the Huskies in a section title game, they took home the first volleyball blue banner in school history, beating Trans-Valley League foe Sonora in four competitive sets, 24-26, 25-19, 25-14, 25-18.

This was a season of growth for the Huskies.

Not only did they gain belief in themselves as a team, they also continued to improve as the season progressed. Their scores against Sonora prove that.

In their first meeting this season, the Wildcats swept the Huskies. In their second league matchup, the Huskies won in five sets. That all set up Saturday’s rubber match.

Hughson knew everything Sonora did well and the Wildcats knew all about the Huskies. The winner of this pivotal third match would be the team that adjusted the best, the one that turned its early season weaknesses into its strengths.

“We had some spots when we played them previously that we weren’t good at on defense,” said freshman Addison Yarbrough, “and they knew we weren’t good at covering those. But we worked on those specific things. So when they went to run and swing or tip over the block, we were prepared for that.”

That was on full display Saturday.

Sonora took a back-and-forth first set, 26-24 but Hughson responded. With the second frame tied at 14, the Huskies went on an 8-3 run, taking a 22-17 advantage and forcing a Sonora timeout. Paisley Peterson came out of the break with an ace as the Huskies scored three of the final five points in the set and evened the match at 1-1.

The Huskies rolled in the third set, turning an 11-4 early advantage into a 22-13 lead late in the frame. Two front-row kills from Yarbrough and a back-row attack from junior kills leader Olivia Piazza sealed the third-set win.

As Hughson was trying to close out the match with an 18-15 fourth-set lead, Sonora attempted to make a late run. Beers said her message in a timeout echoed those early conversations with the team. When they believed they deserved success, they would achieve it.

“As soon as you step into this identity that you guys are these players and are these winners, you guys can do anything,” Beers said of her message to the team. In the fourth set, “I said, ‘Don’t forget your identity. You are winners, you are champions.’”

When the Huskies needed a point all match, they turned to their offensive leaders all season, Piazza and Yarbrough.

Piazza is a three-year varsity player who entered the match 13th in the Sac-Joaquin Section in kills (397). Early in the year, she knew the team could get this far.

Yarbrough shined on the section’s biggest stage as just a freshman. With the final set tied at 14, she and Piazza had kills that were part of a 4-1 run to give the Huskies control. Yarbrough’s back-to-back aces late in the contest helped seal the win. Though she did not expect to have a big role so early, she entered the match second on the team in kills and first in aces.

“This group of girls, they’re hard workers and they already have a lot of experience even though they’re young,” Piazza said. “And I knew with our coach, she wasn’t going to let us let up and she was going to push us as far as we could go.”

Any team that goes through a league like the TVL is battle-tested. Having some success in a league that featured defending NorCal and section champions along with a number of section semifinalists proved to Beers that the team was starting to figure it out.

“The TVL is just a respectable league all around,” Beers said. “Any game you win, you’re like this is just awesome that we’re able to do this because these are phenomenal teams.”

Now, after winning their first section title, the Huskies are not interested in slowing down.

They learn their fate Sunday in the CIF Northern California Regional playoffs where they will be placed in a division by the CIF’s seeding committee based on competitive equity.

After falling short in the quarterfinals in each of the last three seasons, a new part of the schedule brings new sets of opponents from across the many sections across Northern California.

“Now we know we’re a section-winning team and that’s the standard,” Piazza said of the team’s approach moving forward, “we can’t lower that.”

This story was originally published November 9, 2025 at 9:22 AM.

Quinton Hamilton

The Modesto Bee

Quinton Hamilton covers high school sports for The Modesto Bee. He is a Southern California native and received his bachelor’s degree from Pacific Union College and a master’s in journalism from Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. Quinton has worked at the Record-Journal in Meriden and helped on projects at Hearst Connecticut.