Former boys and girl’s junior varsity leader, Darren Honda is taking the role as only Metea Valley’s second varsity boys volleyball coach after the departure of John Aister. Check out the latest feature story, presented by Edward Medical Group.
On November 13th, 2021, the Metea Valley girls volleyball team not only captured their first state championship but also brought home the school’s first ever-state trophy. As we hit the spring portion of the season, one of the familiar faces around the Mustangs is looking to keep that winning tradition rolling for the boys team in 2022.
“I was already here I had coached before I’ve known the kids known me I knew a lot of the other coaches we retain some of the coaches to keep working with me so that’s gonna make it a bit easier.”
Former boys and girls junior varsity leader, Darren Honda is taking the role as only Metea Valley’s second varsity boys volleyball coach after the departure of John Aister. Honda has been on both sides of Mustang Volleyball for five years, and despite coaching different genders, the competition itself remains the same in his coaching kit.
“At the end of the day volleyball is volleyball and my philosophy is really the same when it comes to volleyball serve and serve receive will win you games so whoever win the serve and serve receive battle, you’re gonna win 80% of your matches just like that element of the game.”
Prior to Metea Valley, Darren Honda was also a coach at Illinois Performance Volleyball and remains in that organization for his tenth year while continuing his tenure with the Black and Gold. However, this is not the first time that last name has been seen around Mustang country. He had two kids go through the halls of Metea Valley and coincidentally it was watching his daughter’s success with the volleyball program that drew his interest in coaching.
“The coaching thing came much later for volleyball my daughter played high school and college volleyball I got interested in that, that got me interested in coaching and from there I kinda got into volleyball coaching.”
Six seniors return for the 2022 season, and four of them are experienced varsity players. Although over 100 student athletes tried out for this go around and that is pivotal for coach Honda as he looking to bring back success for the Ponies after the team captured its first regional title in 2018.
“To me the chance to kind of put my footprint on this team and try to rebuild the program get it back up to what it use to be and get this last group kinda going and have a successful season is really exciting like we had 105 kids tryout for boys volleyball which is a huge and phenomenal number for us. So it’s breathing new light into our program. We’ve picked up a couple new faces so I think between that group of players, we’re gonna be a pretty solid team this year.”
The team’s first match isn’t until March 22nd against Joliet Catholic. So, in the meantime there will be plenty of preparation in the gym for the new staff hoping to mold this year’s group into contenders.
For Naperville Sports Weekly, I’m Patrick Codo.
