Photo credit: Sara Salehi

Archer varsity volleyball players run laps at a warm-up during practice Sept. 4. The team practices for two hours after school at Vertical Sports Performance. Several sports practice off campus, such as tennis and cross country.

With a number of new changes and teams, Archer has kicked off the fall sports season. This year, Archer moved to the Gold Coast League, a high school athletic conference under the California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section, which consists of independent schools across west Los Angeles and Los Angeles County.

Upper school sports — varsity and JV tennis, varsity and JV volleyball and varsity cross country — started their seasons before school. Starting in early August, the teams focused on getting back into shape and refining strategies for their upcoming competitions. Meanwhile, middle school sports, including swimming, cross country and volleyball, began their seasons last week.

Athletic assistant Madi Witt sent out an email with a sign-up sheet to gauge interest in a newly introduced upper school sport: lacrosse. After offering lacrosse to middle school students last year, Archer’s athletic department created a team for the upper school. Kylie Tan (’27) is one of the few upper school students who have signed up thus far.

“I was first introduced to lacrosse in eighth grade by another Archer student. At first, I was a little hesitant about it, but then I was like, ‘Why not?’ I tried it, and I really enjoyed it,” Tan said. “I feel like it’s a really good opportunity because I feel like lacrosse is an upcoming sport, so it’s great that Archer is expanding what sports they provide.”

Tan said she hopes more students sign up for lacrosse, so it can be officially added to the upper school sports roster, allowing her to improve her skills with a competing team.

Alongside lacrosse, Archer Athletics is introducing an equestrian practice team that will compete in the Interscholastic Equestrian Association (IEA), an organization designed for newer riders. Practices will take place at Jigsaw Barns, with schedules set to be finalized later this next week. Athletic assistant Madi Witt said the goal for this team is for riders to gain enough experience to eventually compete with the Interscholastic Equestrian League (IEL) team.

“We won the IEL last year so it was a great experience,” Witt said. “Everyone that was a part of it had a huge accomplishment, so I think that we’re just trying to bring more students who are interested in the sport, and then can join the team making bigger accomplishments together.”

In addition, varsity volleyball played their first three games before the school year began, facing Pacifica Christian High School, Saint Monica’s Preparatory and Immaculate Heart, resulting in two losses. Team captain Sara Salehi (’26) said the team does not have the tallest players, which is often considered an important factor in volleyball, but that they make up for it with their speed and control. Salehi believes losing teaches them how to handle failure and improve by learning from their mistakes.

“Our coach Charlie has been talking a lot about building mental strength as well as physical conditioning, but mental strength is harder to build up,” Salehi said. “Something we’ve done to learn from our mistakes is we watch back videos of old clips from a tournament. My dad is the person who records it, and so our coach looks back on our videos and shows us what we’re doing wrong, and then we create a little chart on the whiteboard, and we talk about what we need to improve on.”

Varsity volleyball is just getting started with their season, with their next game set for Sept. 13 against Windward School. The season will wrap up in late October, and if fall sports teams perform well in their leagues, they will advance to CIF playoffs in early November.

“I think a goal for us is to find success, and that doesn’t have to be the textbook definition way,” Salehi said. “Instead, I think success is going to be trying our hardest, playing as hard as we can every single game.”