As a sophomore two years ago, Nathan Baldevia would attend his older sister Celine’s high school volleyball matches, home and away, and admire her Osan American Cougars’ successes – as in two straight Far East Division II Tournament titles.

All the while, he – a member of Osan’s boys team since his freshman year – kept saying to himself: “I want to be like her one day.”

Fast forward to the 2010 season. Long after Celine graduated and moved on to playing college ball at University of Seattle, Nathan and his Cougars cohorts are, indeed, making a name for themselves, a classic case of “if they could do it, so can we.”

With two matches left in the regular season, Osan’s boys are unbeaten at 12-0 in Korean-American Interscholastic Activities Conference Division I. Included in that ledger: A school-first win over Seoul Foreign, 15 years in the making.

“We have everything this year. We’re really confident about this year,” Baldevia said of a team built around a core of four players, sons of civilians who’ve lived in Korea for as many as nine years.

Three from that core have played four seasons, all-league setter Baldevia (24.8 sets per match), two-time all-league hitter Billy Bortscheller (10.6 kills, 5.6 digs) and Jason Griess (9.5, 4.8). The fourth, Matt Albonetti (8.8, 9.1), is a junior.

Like Baldevia, Griess and Albonetti follow older siblings’ successes:

-- Emily Albonetti in 2008 became the first girls wrestler to score team points, win bouts and earn a medal in Far East Tournament history.

-- Eric Griess played for an Osan football team that won the inaugural Far East Division II title over Robert D. Edgren in November 2005.

“To see him do something he always wanted to do was something great for he and I both,” the younger Griess said. Of the chance of winning a school-first KAIAC title in boys volleyball: “He and I are both excited for the potential of doing something that’s never been done before.”

Osan’s boys’ ascent took root in 2007, when Dan Arnold and Sean Moye – now playing at Mount Olive College in North Carolina – led the Cougars to a sixth-place regular-season and fifth in the KAIAC Tournament.

Two 12-2 regular seasons followed as well as KAIAC Tournament runner-up finishes, with the only losses coming at Seoul Foreign’s hands.

Three of those four seasons saw a different coach at Osan’s helm.

Mike Hogen, now coaching girls ball at Kubasaki, worked with them in 2007 and ’08. All-Air Force coaches Tim Kim and Manny Miguel had them in 2009, under DODDS sponsor Rick Mitchell.

Now Grant Thomasson, 38, of Tyler, Texas, an Air Force master sergeant who’s played varsity ball at RAF Mildenhall and Osan Air Base the last seven years, has assumed the helm.

Not long after his arrival at Osan in February, Thomasson noticed the high school players would come and practice on Sundays with the base team. As he watched them hit and dig with players years older than they, “You could see right away, the talent at Osan is there,” Thomasson said.

“If I need a pass, defense, somebody to pick somebody up, Jason’s got the right attitude. Billy and Nate, you can see they’ve played together a long time. And Albonetti is the team’s best passer and defender.”

Having so many coaches has been more of a help than a hindrance, Griess said. “Each coach built on a different aspect of the game. One coach would work on hitting, the next year we’d work on passing,” he said.

Ensuring chemistry within the rank and file has been somewhat tougher. “Incorporating the other players was a little rocky at the beginning, we lost our first set of the season, but we fell into a rhythm,” Griess said.

“If we can get the chemistry where it needs to be, the sky’s the limit,” Thomasson said, adding that the Cougars “could not have done it” without the help and support of the entire team.

Other teams have noted Osan’s success. “You have to match them at the net,” said 21-year Seoul Foreign coach Marian Gillett, whose Crusaders lost at Osan in three sets; the rematch is Wednesday at Seoul Foreign. “This team is terrific. Good hitting. A lot of options at the net.”

How does one stop them? “Big blocks and aggressive defense,” said Lori Rogers, whose Seoul American boys took Osan to the limit last week before falling in five sets.

Unlike girls, there is no Far East tournament for boys volleyball, though the Cougars said they wish there was one. “Our work deserves to have some merit and a reward at the end of the season. Far East would be a good chance to prove ourselves,” Griess said.

DODDS Pacific Far East athletics coordinator Don Hobbs pointed out that only four DODDS schools play boys volleyball, and one of them, Guam High, plays its season just as KAIAC is ending.

So, the Cougars plan to soldier on and, hopefully, call KAIAC their pot of gold at rainbow’s end. But they’re taking nothing for granted.

“Nothing’s given to us yet,” Bortscheller said. “We try to give ourselves a chance to be there, when the game comes, to try to do everything right, so we can prove to everyone that we’re the champions. We’re taking it one game at a time.”

ornauerd@pstripes.osd.mil

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