Photo by Rich Schmitt, Staff Photographer
Every time Harvard-Westlake senior Molly Soboroff steps onto a volleyball court, she has one clear objective for herself: ‘Put every ball down.’ As team captain, Soboroff, 17, plays right side, or outside hitter and back row as a defensive specialist for the Wolverines, who compete in the Mission League in the CIF Southern Section, Division III. Per game, she averages 3 digs, 2.1 passes and 2.7 blocks. In preseason action, Harvard-Westlake was 6-8, which included four tournaments’the Lolani and Punahou in Hawaii over the summer and recently the Cougar Tournament and the Orange City Championship. League play began on Tuesday at Louisville. Soboroff, a Palisadian, attended Curtis School in kindergarten through sixth grade. She spent a year at Marlborough, an all-girls school in Hancock Park, before settling in eighth grade on Harvard-Westlake, located on Coldwater Canyon in North Hollywood. She says she chose Harvard-Westlake for a couple of reasons. ‘I knew about the volleyball program from [my time] at Curtis and Marlborough and both my brothers went there and loved it.’ One of Soboroff’s proudest achievements came at the beginning of the season when she was elected to one of the two captain positions by her teammates. ‘It’s something that I’ve dreamed of since I started playing volleyball and now that I have it, it’s awesome,’ she says. Recently, Soboroff was also elected to her school’s student-athlete advisory council, which meets once a month to discuss how to create a ‘better balance between homework and sports’ for student-athletes. A volleyball player since fourth grade, Soboroff attributes her development as a player to her past coaches, Steve Chen, Matt Sebree and her Harvard-Westlake coach, Jessie Quiroz, whom she and her teammates refer to as ‘Coach Q.’ ‘Coach Q is a great motivator,’ she says. ‘He’s taught me the basics of how to be a leader and is always offering me constructive criticism.’ Quiroz is equally as praising towards Soboroff, saying she is an excellent reader of the ball on the court and is one of the best passers and diggers on the team. ‘She’s one of the hardest workers out there,’ he says. ‘She loves the game.’ Last year’s Wolverine volleyball team lost in the CIF quarters against La Canada and finished third overall in the Mission League. Soboroff says this year’s team goals include: improving communication, creating chemistry, keeping focused and winning the league title. Individually, her goals include: having fun, forming good friendships and maintaining the team’s cohesion. Before each game, Soboroff and her teammates go through a pre-game ritual which consists of sitting in a circle, holding hands and talking about their goals for the game. After that, they go outside and ‘jig.’ ‘We have a dance we do called ‘Jigalow,’ where we dance in a circle,’ she says. ‘It’s really silly but it gets us pumped up.’ On occasion, the team will also head over to the local Coffee Bean Tea & Leaf to fill up on a Pure Chocolate Ice Blended drink, which Soboroff calls ‘the pump-up drink’ of the team. Soboroff, herself, has earned the nickname ‘carpool mom’ from her fellow Palisadian teammates’Katherine Kanoff, Katherine Quinn, Kaitlain Segal and Taylor Morgan’whom she drives home from practice each day. After Harvard-Westlake’s season ends in November, Soboroff will begin her third year playing for the Santa Monica Beach Club (SMBC), which is based at Harvard-Westlake. In club volleyball, Soboroff plays libero’a position not allowed in high school volleyball’in which the player is restricted to playing only in the back row and wears a different colored jersey than the rest of the team. Liberos may not serve, block or attempt to block and substitutions are not counted as regular and their number is unlimited. The club season ends in June, making volleyball a year-round activity for Soboroff. The majority of Soboroff’s Wolverine teammates participate on the SMBC, while others play for Sports Shack’a volleyball club team based at Marymount. Born and raised in the Palisades, Soboroff lives on Shadow Mountain off Bienveneda. Her parents, Steve and Patti, never miss her volleyball games’home or away. Patti even made hair ribbons to adorn each player’s ponytail. ‘They’re very supportive,’ says Soboroff, who has two older brothers, Jacob, 21, who attends NYU and Miles, 19, who attends USC. She also has two younger sisters, Hannah, 16, who also attends Harvard-Westlake and Leah, 11, who attends John Thomas Dye. Soboroff will graduate from Harvard-Westlake in early June and says she’d like to attend college in the East. ‘Ideally, I’d go to NYU and play volleyball.’ Her favorite courses in school include English, French and psychology but as far as what her major in college will be, she’s undecided. ‘It’ll be something that has nothing to do with math or science,’ she laughs. When she’s not spiking balls or serving up aces, Soboroff enjoys spending time with her friends and family and simply ‘being a normal teenager.’ On sunny days, one can find her and her friends lounging at the beach in Santa Monica or having lunch with her family in Malibu. ‘I also love to shop,’ she says with a smile.
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