First-Year Twins’ Position Change Powers Panther’s Success

Ella (left) and Zoey (right). – Photo by Christian Romo

By Christian Romo

Poly first-year sisters Ella and Zoey Mao, both 14, munched on a post-game snack with their teammates on the gym floor at Westridge School, laughing and joking as if they had finished their last day of class.

The Panthers had just beaten Westridge, the best team in the Prep League and favorites for a CIF title, whose second-best hitter would be most teams’ star player and whose featured hitter competes for the Youth National Team. But the stars of this game were Ella and Zoey, whose effective attacks surprised the Tigers defense, the home fans, and even themselves. “I was expecting to get crushed!” said Ella after the match.

Even if this turns out to be the high point for the 2016 Panthers, the five-set win at Westridge proved that Poly could hang with the best teams in the area. It also proved that opposing teams will have to focus on the talented Mao sisters for the next three years.

But most importantly, just one game into the league season, the win proved the team’s wild experiment with their pair of first-year hitters was working.

Poly coach Steve Beerman began the 2016 season with few expectations. The 2015 Panthers finished under .500 for the season, good for fourth in the Prep League and a first-round exit in the CIF playoffs. He also inherited a team with more first-years than seniors, and more questions than game plans.

The most pressing issue was that he needed a setter, and he wasn’t sure who on the team could step up. So after evaluating Ella and Zoey with only a few weeks of summer practice remaining, he asked if either would be interested becoming the team’s primary setter. There was just one problem.

Neither had ever set in a competitive match before.

“It’s not that common,” says Ella. They had trained for years as hitters with the San Gabriel Valley Elite, the local powerhouse volleyball club, and now their coach was asking them to learn a completely different role. It’s an unreasonable challenge for most hitters to take up so late in their careers.

Setters have a job unlike any in sports: they are simultaneously the most important and least appreciated members of any volleyball team. Setting is also one of the game’s most difficult skills, requiring agility, finesse, and timing in a game that markets power and speed above all. It takes years of practice to be able to set at a high level, and Beerman was asking Ella and Zoey to learn from scratch in just three weeks.

“It’s impossible,” says Beerman. “We’re asking those girls to do more than any freshmen we’ve ever had.”

Ella hesitated initially, but Zoey agreed to learn, spending the rest of summer practice learning how to set and taking private classes with SGV Elite. “I just felt like no one was going to do it,” says Zoey, who had some experience as an emergency setter for the Elite, “and with a little bit of instruction, I could do it.”

Ella agreed to learn to set two games into the season, but without any previous experience, she was less confident than her sister. “At the beginning, I thought, ‘oh god, we’re gonna be so bad,’ ” she says.

But the Panthers started well, winning seven of their first eleven matches with the Maos as setters before upsetting Westridge, and sweeping their next three league matches to take first place in the Prep League. Much of their success had to do with Ella and Zoey, who Beerman says have “skills and abilities greater than their years.”

“I’m amazed how well both of them are handling it,” says Beerman. “Them accepting this challenge has made us competitive against anyone.”

Ella and Zoey are identical twins from Los Angeles, both listed at five feet, ten inches, with lanky strides and matching ponytails. Ella is bubbly and smiles when she talks, while Zoey is quieter, but certainly not shy. Ella talks like a writer with a million ideas she has to get out of her head, afraid of losing them forever. Zoey speaks like a careful editor, interrupting occasionally to correct Ella or to add a missing detail. They’re a conversational tag-team telling two perspectives of the same story.

The sisters entered Poly in the seventh grade, joining the middle school volleyball team and filling their schedules with schoolwork and music lessons. They both play piano and Zoey plays cello, though she’s thinking of dropping one like Ella dropped violin earlier this year. “I just don’t have the time anymore,” Ella says.

Both want to be multi-sport athletes, though it’s unclear which other sports they will play. Zoey is an accomplished high jumper and will probably be on the track team in the spring, while Ella is considering adding fencing, basketball, and soccer to her athletic résumé. Zoey reminds Ella that they both tried soccer and hated it, though Ella insists that she can be a good goalie.

Considering how competitive they are, it shouldn’t be surprising if they succeed playing any sport they choose. Their father Eric Mao says that they even compete with schoolwork, refusing to help each other with the same assignments, hoping to score higher than the other without any assistance. “There is very much a rivalry. They hate losing,” he says.

Their competitiveness brought them to an unexpected matchup this summer when they were invited to participate with many of the best high school players in the country at the National Team Program in Colorado Springs. Towards the end of the program, after a week of training with coaches from USA Volleyball, they were placed on different teams for an inter-squad tournament. Both Ella and Zoey’s team made it to the finals, and for the first time in their lives, they had to play against each other in a competitive match.

“It was kinda like, aim away at each other,” says Ella, who wasn’t sure how to handle playing against Zoey. “I told my team that my sister was really good and that we shouldn’t hit it at her.”

Zoey wasn’t as kind to her sister. “For serve receive, I told them to hit it to Ella,” she says, smirking. Zoey’s strategy worked: her team won the gold medal, while Ella’s settled for silver.

Though they enjoy competition, winning isn’t everything for the sisters. “I’m pretty competitive, but I’m not gonna be all sad if we lose,” says Ella. Eric agrees, calling Ella and Zoey “cool-hand Luke” and praising their calm demeanors.

“They truly care about every member of the team,” says Beerman, highlighting their unselfish play. “We would not be the team that we are if they had not accepted the challenge.”

Though the Panthers spent most of the season in first place, a league title isn’t on anyone’s mind. “First, I want to get to CIF,” says Ella, managing her expectations.

“I just want to beat Mayfield,” says Zoey, still upset about their home loss to the rival Cubs.

Beerman, however, now speaks optimistically about his team with Ella and Zoey emerging as featured players. “When we won at Westridge, we had no expectations,” he says. “But now, the future’s bright.”

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