Halia Mahi will focus on beach this high school season
The beach game is the fastest growing game in the NCAA right now. With that growth, there has been an explosion at the junior level. Not only are there exponentially more athletes playing the game, they are playing at…
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A trend that has yet to hit Iowa, but becoming popular in the warmer climate States. Halia Mahi will forgo her high school season at Cedar Falls to focus on her beach game. Halia is the first in Iowa to take the step. Being a coaches kid, I know this was a hard decision for her family to make, but one that Halia knew she has wanted to do for a long time. ” It was something I had been thinking about for a couple years. I asked my parents if I could focus on beach and not play school volleyball since 7th grade. They really didn’t give me a choice until this summer. When we were in California again this summer playing beach, I told my mom that I didn’t want play high school volleyball. She said that I would have to talk to my dad when we got home. I was really scared to talk to him. I mean, he is the assistant coach at UNI and I know he wanted me to play for Cedar Falls. But he listened to me and knew that I had been thinking about this for awhile now. He doesn’t agree with me, but he supports my decision. I am not sure if I will want to play high school volleyball again, right now I am going to train in the sand and I haven’t really missed indoor yet.”
The Mahi’s have developed a wonderful sand program in Iowa called CIA BEACH. The first of its kind in Iowa. CIA BEACH has been competing as a club throughout the Midwest, South, and West Coast for 8 years. The skill and competitive level of the players has really elevated over the past 2-3 years. Halia has been playing beach club for 6 years through CIA BEACH and has competed all over the country. Halia talks about how she got so involved in the beach game, ” My parents love beach volleyball and my sisters and I have also fallen in love with it. My older sister, Tayah, had a really hard time trying to decide whether to play beach or indoor in college. When I was 10, I went to a clinic that Misty May-Treanor ran and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I want to do what she does. I have been playing in beach tournaments since I was 9yrs old.” Halia and her family go every year to Hermosa Beach in California to train and compete for 2 weeks. This past summer was their 5th summer in Hermosa training and I know Halia would just like to move there!
There are major benefits of focusing on beach only for Halia. The beach season in Iowa is very short, only spans from May-July. Being recruited to play beach in college is also difficult when you have a short beach season. “While I was in California in July, I was talking with many other beach players and many of them also just play beach year round. Girls from California, Texas, Florida another warm states can train and compete so much longer than we can in Iowa. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to keep practicing until it gets too cold this fall. I also want to go to fall camps and college showcases strictly for beach. If I played school ball, I wouldn’t be able to do those things.” Halia said.
Halia will continue her beach training at the CIA center on the beach courts throughout the fall as well as attend many showcases and camps on the West Coast and in the south. We are excited to watch Halia’s progress in the sand and also see the increase of beach only athletes in Iowa.