La Jolla Country Day’s beach volleyball program, in its second year under coach Lynne Galli, has switched to a novel idea — at least for volleyball: pairing seniors with younger underclassmen to provide mentoring and team unity.

Jongho Lee, a senior captain, usually plays libero on the Torrey indoor team. “He is good on defense and jump-serving,” says his coach.

Paired with freshman Henry Alexander, Lee says, “There isn’t much I had to mentor. Henry has the skills. He played indoor before.” He downplays the leadership he has had to show in the Torreys’ program-growing season.

Lee, a strong, wiry 17-year-old, studying marine animals in the classroom, says, “This year has been a lot more fun — a lot more strategic.”

As he and Henry mesh with different styles, Jongho has learned some key things outside his science mentality: “Not everyone learns the way I do. They may not get it the first time. And other team members can go to Coach Lynne and Junobi (Ree, the other senior captain) for advice as well.”

These could be ideas he can apply in his future career, as he plans to go into business, and “you want to have an atmosphere to develop a winning culture.”

Galli was hurriedly preparing the Torreys’ new beach sand courts on campus for a home play-in match by spraying them to keep down the dust and raking sand that piles up at the net by frequent approaches there by blockers and setters.

“(Our program) is growing. We have more guys than last year. It’s been fun,” says the veteran indoor coach. LJCD beat Santa Fe Christian, today’s opponent, in an earlier match this season, 3-2.

She relies heavily on her two captains to help create a culture that fosters team cohesiveness and the sharing of skills while incorporating the unusual pairing of partners across different years in school. The much more common approach in beach is to pair teammates from the same class who have grown up together and already are friends: seniors with seniors, juniors with juniors, and so forth.

Ree, the other captain who plays on the ones (in matches, five pairs compete against five from another school, numbered one through five by playing ability), is interested in history class by the changing definition of what is termed legal personhood. “For example, the U.S. had slavery, then Black people later became citizens. Women (in a different but related evolution) can now vote (which they couldn’t before.)”

Paired with junior Amir Tabatabaei, he says an advantage of beach volleyball is, “If you make a mistake, it’s not a big deal. That’s reassuring.” You don’t have five teammates on the floor to deal with, as in indoor volleyball, only one teammate.

Ree is relatively new to the sport. “It’s only his second year of beach. He’s probably our best all-around athlete,” says Galli. “He gets the tougher match. He enjoys it.”

Another senior, Cooper Chapman, mentors partner Anthony Casey, a freshman, on the twos pair.