Daniella Fenster Leads USA Girls Volleyball Team to Gold Medal in Israel
Think positive. That was the mentality of Team USA U18 volleyball player Daniella Fenster from the moment she stepped off the plane to participate in the 21st World Maccabiah Games in Israel held July 13-22. Exuding a confidence and positivity that rubbed off on all her teammates, the 5 feet, 10 inch tall middle blocker from Huntington Palisades led her underdog squad to the gold medal with an upset of host Israel in the championship match. Entering her senior year at Archer School for Girls up the road in Brentwood, Fenster served the last two points to close out he fourth set in the finals. Along with fellow Palisadian Gemma Larbalestier, Fenster powered Archer to second place in the Liberty League last fall and a berth in the CIF Southern Section Division 4 playoffs. Upon returning home, she shared her thoughts on the tournament and her time in Israel with Sports Editor Steve Galluzzo:
PP: How were you chosen for the U18 squad? Did you get to do much team bonding before the Games?
DF: I attended a tryout for the team in August of 2021 in King of Prussia, Philadelphia, and was contacted a few months later with the news that I made the team. One of my friends I go to school with told me to tryout for the games since she was attending for rhythmic gymnastics and I was hesitant since I had never heard of them before and tryouts were coming up so soon, but four days later I was on a plane with my mom to the tryout. I also know a few players at my school that played on the U18 soccer team and someone who played on the U16 volleyball team. I didn’t know any of the other players on my team, just players on other teams.
There was quite a bit of team bonding before the Maccabiah Games since the first week of the trip was with a program called Israel Connect where we had a week of mixed touring around Israel with practices. For our first two days, we had practices in the mornings and afternoons, then for the rest of the week we had practices in the mornings and traveling throughout the rest of the day. A model day entailed waking up at 5:30 a.m. for a two-hour practice, retiring to the hotel to shower, and then leaving about an hour later to tour. During Israel Connect, we went to Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Museum), Masada, the Dead Sea, and more. One really fun day during Israel Connect was when we played an entire day of volleyball with Israeli and German teams—the goal being to learn that sports is a universal language and that we can communicate through sports when we cannot with words.
PP: Was this your first time in Israel?
DF: No. I went to Israel in 2018 for my Bat Mitzvah. There is actually an article in the Palisadian-Post about it since I went with some other Palisadians!
PP: Did you play other sports growing up? Do you have any brothers or sisters wh play sports?
DF: I played basketball growing up at the Palisades Recreation Center! Basketball was my favorite sport for a very long time until I started playing volleyball and I had to choose between the two in high school. I have an older sister, Maddie, going into her junior year at the University of Chicago. She played volleyball for a few years but decided not to continue in high school.
PP: What club teams did you play for before stopping? What schools did you attend before Archer?
DF: I played at Active Volleyball but I stopped playing club last year. I went to Palisades Elementary and I have been at Archer since middle school.
PP: Would you like to continue playing volleyball at the collegiate level?
DF: I do not plan to play in college, other than maybe on a club team.
PP: How would you describe the Maccabiah Games and your team’s run to the gold medal?
DF: Going to the Maccabiah Games (also known as the Jewish Olympics) in Israel to compete on the USA U18 girls volleyball team against four other countries (including Israel’s national team) was an honor and I am proud that I returned with the gold medal. President Biden attended the Opening Ceremonies. The Maccabiah Games are the third-largest international competition (after the Summer Olympics and the World Cup) and this year approximately 10,000 athletes from 80 countries competed in 42 sports categories. My team had a difficult battle for the gold in our competition against Israel, Brazil, Argentina, and Canada. We won all of our matches before the championship game except for our second round robin match against Israel. Considering that the Israeli national team had been playing together for seven years while my team had just met two weeks before the start of the Games, we thought that we had no chance at taking down the expected champions. In our pool play meeting to determine the standings for the playoffs we had a close first match against Israel but we lost in four in the best-of-five sets format, which gave Israel the No. 1 seed. We faced them again about a week later in the championship match and we won by two points in the fifth set, which is as close as a volleyball game can end!
PP: What are your hobbies outside of volleyball? DF: I love skiing, biking, mountain biking, beach volleyball, paddleboarding, listening to music, going to the beach and going on adventures with my friends. My favorite thing to do is grab dinner in the Palisades to go and take it to the beach for a picnic with my friends.
PP: Do you know any of the players on Palisades High’s girls volleyball team?
DF: I know Erin Hogan since I used to play on a club team, but I think she is the only one.
PP: When and where did Team USA start practicing for the Maccabiah Games?
DF: We started practicing in Ra’anana the day after we arrived in Israel. Our first practice was a little bit rocky considering that it was our first time playing together. We had met each other the day before and we were playing with an international volleyball that none of us were used to. After that first practice, though, we were able to play and communicate really well together.
PP: How long did it take for the team to gel?
DF: We were all pretty surprised at how quickly we were able to come together since volleyball is a very technical sport, but if you throw six good volleyball players on the court, the worst that can happen is a little bit of miscommunication.
PP: What did you do differently in the finals that turned the tables against the host nation?
DF: Personally, I came into the final with my head held high and no doubt in my mind that we were about to bring home the gold. Even though we had lost to them in the round robin phase I had complete confidence that we had enough time in the week before the final to make the improvements necessary to take Israel down. While our team had only two weeks of practice before the Games and had plenty of room for improvement, Israel’s team had already had seven years together to make improvements, so I knew we would be a lot better in the finals whereas they would be at a pretty similar skill level. The win also required a lot of energy. Energy on the court is often overlooked, but I honestly believe that our wins against Brazil in the semifinals and Israel in the final can largely be attributed to our high energy levels.
PP: How long have you been playing volleyball and who introduced you to the sport?
DF: I started playing volleyball six years ago at the age of 11 after my older sister had been playing at our school (Archer) for a season.
PP: How did the gold medal match end?
DF: I rotated out at our game point, so I was coming off the bench. The point ended with a tip from our team that got shanked into the net after a pretty long rally.
PP: What did your coach say after the match?
DF: Our coach told us how proud he was that we were able to continue to play hard and not crumble, even after losing the first set against them. He added that the win was so well deserved since he had seen how hard we had been working the past three weeks.
PP: What was it like representing your country at the Maccabiah Games and how important was it for the team to bring home the gold?
DF: It felt really amazing to be part of the largest delegation at the Maccabiah Games and especially to take down the expected champions in the Israel team’s home gym. It was a very interesting feeling to go into the final with so much desire for the victory against the pre-tournament favorite but knowing that Israel would probably come out on top. I wanted to shake up the expectation so badly to prove that we could take down a national team that had been playing together for seven years in their home gym when everyone was expecting them to defeat us. I wanted to win to prove to myself that breaking the expectation is absolutely possible and that it is so important to believe in yourself even when all odds are against you.
PP: Why were you so confident you would win?
DF: Something that happened which I thought was pretty interesting is that after the gold medal game I kept hearing my teammates say that they genuinely could not believe that we won and, at first, I agreed. But then when I thought back to the beginning of the match, I remembered that I had full confidence that we were going to come out of Maccabiah having won the gold medal. I wondered why I was so confident since the chances were so very low that we would win the whole thing. I figured out that I had, with entirely fake confidence, told so many other athletes from other sports and countries in casual conversation that we were going to win the final that I began to believe it myself! Since the few days leading up to the final were so hectic I never had a moment to slow down a give myself a reality check on what I had been telling so many athletes that week, so I went into the final still believing what I said to other athletes even though I did not really believe it when I had initially started telling people!
PP: Where did you stay during the tournament?
DF: Initially we stayed in Ra’anana for a week before moving to Haifa after the Opening Ceremonies for our competition. We had fun visiting the Shuk in Tel Aviv (an outdoor market)and rafting in the Jordan River.
PP: What will you remember most about playing in this year’s Maccabiah Games?
DF: The thing I will remember most about Maccabi is the people that I met on the trip. It was such a unique experience getting to live, tour and play volleyball with 11 other girls from around the United States and to spend every second of every day with them. I made such strong friendships that I will have for the rest of my life that otherwise would not have been possible if we had not been on the same team.
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