How Seneca Valley’s Gavin Gorajewski is standing out in club volleyball ranks
Even on vacation at a Florida beach, Gavin Gorajewski finds a volleyball.
So it’s no surprise the rising Seneca Valley junior, a boys volleyball outside hitter and All-WPIAL first-teamer who plays outside the high school scene with Vanguard Volleyball Club, was named tournament MVP at AAU Nationals in Orlando earlier this month.
Gorajewski is accustomed to working out of the back row with his club team. He travels three-and-a-half hours to Columbus to practice with the group every Friday, staying the night with a teammate and his family before driving back home on Saturdays.
Vanguard squares off with West Coast competition, along with teams from Florida and Illinois, the latter of which Gorajewski said is “surprisingly a men’s volleyball state.”
“The region that I play in is far more advanced than the region that I live in,” Gorajewski said. “It’s just the greatest talent I can find. ... It’s just the atmosphere and everything about my club, and the travel ball, they put me in places where I can get seen by college scouts.”
Gorajewski has his “eyes set on Division I,” he said. Coaches from that level have reached out to his club’s coaches and directors.
His role as a sophomore with the Raiders was to “get kills when we needed it, put the ball down, be big in big moments and then sometimes I’d play out of the back row, too.” He finished the season with 257 kills, 39 blocks, 56 digs and 58 aces.
And no, he can’t even escape the urge to try to get better on a family excursion.
“I was actually just playing on the beach,” Gorajewski said. “Just family messing around, just trying to get touches in. Any time, anywhere, I try.”
