Beyer will be first Modesto public school to play for SJS boys volleyball title
Win games, make history, leave a legacy. That has been the calling card for the Beyer boys volleyball team since their first practice.
And so far, the Patriots have lived up to their lofty goals.
The wins have come. The Patriots’ 28 match victories are the most in the program’s short history and their second-place finish in the Western Athletic Conference is tied for their best league finish. They qualified for the postseason as the No. 1 seed in Division III and dropped just one set in their first two playoff matches. They have won 10 of their last 11 regular season and postseason matches.
They also made history, reaching the semifinals for the first time since the program started three years ago.
On Wednesday, Beyer made its first steps towards leaving a legacy, becoming the first Modesto City School to qualify for a Sac-Joaquin Section boys volleyball championship match with a 25-23, 25-22, 25-15 sweep over Sierra of Manteca in the D-III semifinals.
The Patriots travel to Cosumnes River College Saturday where they play No. 2 Ripon Christian in the title match.
“For them, what matters is the fact that they want to go earn respect from people because they feel like they deserve it,” Patriots head coach Carl Wheeler said. “A lot of these guys have been playing club so they’re trying to put Modesto on the map. They’re trying to put Beyer on the map and make it an elite program in Modesto.”
A team that doesn’t give up
Wheeler can sum up the record-breaking campaign in one word: resiliency.
They have come back from a number of deficits. They have six deciding-set wins, claiming victories in three five-set regular-season matches and three three-set tournament matches.
Beyer once again came from behind to beat the Timberwolves. In the first set they fell into a 17-12 hole after Sierra scored four straight points. They took the lead late in the frame, going on a 6-0 run to take a 22-21 lead that powered them to an opening set win. They saw the same fate in set two, falling behind 19-13 but using an extended run to tie the set at 22 before winning the frame. The third set was all Patriots. They opened a 17-10 advantage before coasting to the 10-point, history-making victory.
“There’s been so many times where we’ve put ourselves in tough positions, but they find a way,” the coach in his first season with the Patriots said. “Other guys find ways to contribute and score. We’ve been down so many times in sets and I’m never going to panic. We’re never panicking.”
The scrappy team atop the Sac-Joaquin Section’s Division III rankings also has top players at multiple positions.
Setter Jordan Sao Rodriguez is 12th nationally and seventh in the state with 897 assists and 11th in California with 73 serving aces. Outside hitter Brett Bird is 16th in the nation and seventh in California in serving aces (80).
Senior outside hitter Luke Rossi joins hit counterpart Bird, a junior, in the top 12 of the CIF-SJS D-III leaderboard in hitting percentage and kills. Rossi is sixth, hitting .337 and Bird is 11th (.308). They are both in the top five of the kills leaderboard with the exact same number of kills, 368.
“We don’t really have a weak rotation because we work on specific offensive situations a lot.” Wheeler said. “We’re confident in any given rotation we’re in, any situation we’re put in. We’ll have guys step up when they need to and earn us points.”
Playing for a blue banner
Saturday afternoon in Sacramento will be a test of first-timers against one of the Stanislaus District’s most established volleyball programs.
The No. 1 Patriots and No. 2 Knights meet for the first time this season and just the second time since Beyer’s program started.
Ripon Christian is already one of the section’s perennial contenders, winning section titles in two of the past three seasons. The Knights beat Encina as the No. 1 seed in the 2023 Division IV playoffs and swept Christian Brothers as the No. 3-seed for the D-III title last season.
But the Patriots are confident in their preparation. They have played championship-level competition this season, opening the regular season with a five-set win over last year’s D-III runner-up. In their third match this season, Beyer took on the same Sierra team they met in the section semifinals and played established programs in Fresno and the Bay Area in non-league games that got them ready for a deep postseason push.
“We had our first match against Christain Brothers and we wanted that. We wanted to make a statement,” Wheeler said. “There’s other matches too, but that set the tone.”
They have been building toward this championship appearance since the program’s inception. They improved their overall record and league standing in each of the last three seasons, going from 15-10 in 2024 to 21-8 with a playoff win in 2025. The Knights ended Beyer’s season last year, winning in the D-III quarterfinals in four sets.
“I think Ripon Christian should be prepared for a battle. They should be prepared for a fight,” Wheeler said. “They know me well because I coached some of them, but these guys are also very hungry. It’s not going to be easy for either team. At the end of the day, some guys are going to step up and they’re going to make the difference in the match.”
