Ironwood Ridge head volleyball coach Bill Lang began asking the district, his athletic director, and principal for the ability to start a sand volleyball team at the school in 2011.
"How about this year, how about this year?" Lang recalls.
But in 2014, Heather Moore-Martin was the first coach to get the nod at Salpointe Catholic High School. With no team in Tucson to compete with, the team would play matches in the Phoenix area as their only option.
That inconvenience changed this year.
Ironwood Ridge became the second team in Tucson to have a high school sand volleyball team, creating opportunities for young players who competed indoors to play outdoors.
"Salpointe kind of paved the road for us in terms of our district looking at it and saying, O.K.!" Lang adds.
On Wednesday at Silverbell Park, the two teams met for the first match between two All-Tucson teams.
TODAY AT SILVERBELL PARK, THE TWO TEAMS MEET.. TO MAKE HISTORY.
"Coming in and seeing all of this, it actually became real," Ironwood Ridge senior Hannah Semon says.
Salpointe defeated Ironwood Ridge 4-1. Click the story for more.
