KAHULUI — This was the day that 32 young volleyball players had been anticipating for months.

Two groups of 16 players each — one in the middle-school age range and the other in the high school and above group — got together for an approved, formal practice with the Aloha Volleyball Association on three sand courts Monday at Kanaha Beach Park.

There were serves, digs, kills, dinks, social distancing due the COVID-19 pandemic — and a whole lot of smiles.

“It’s great, I haven’t played like this in a few months because of all of this, so this is really cool,” said recent Seabury Hall graduate Sevilla Leuteneker, who will play beach volleyball at Irvine Valley College in California next spring. “I get to play again and get ready for college, I guess.”

Leuteneker has been in coach Scott Zucco’s program for nearly a decade, and she said while it was the first day back in months for the AVA group after gaining approval from Maui County officials, it was just like old times.

“I feel safe out here, have since the third grade,” she said. “Maui, there’s not that many (COVID-19) cases. I feel fine. These girls, they wouldn’t come if they were sick. … I feel totally safe being out here.”

Mileina Sniffen will be a senior at Haleakala Waldorf in a couple months. Like Leuteneker, Sniffen was a first-team Division II Maui Interscholastic League All-Star indoors last fall.

“It feels amazing, this whole quarantine thing, just being back out here it feels like a second home,” said Sniffen, who has been in the AVA program since the fourth grade. “So, I’m really excited for the first day of practice.”

Now, Sniffen is crossing her fingers that there will be a fall volleyball season in high school.

“Very hopeful,” she said. “I mean, of course, it’s my last year, so I’m really looking forward to it. My team has been doing some training over the offseason, so, yeah, I’m really excited, really, really hoping that we’re going to have a season.”

Kaili McMillin will be an eighth grader at Seabury Hall this fall.

“It’s been a really long time and it’s really nice to be out and see everybody and just play — it’s really nice,” McMillin said. “I’m really proud of everybody for coming out. It’s good to connect. It’s a lot of fun.

“It’s been months and it’s just really good to be out here. I’m just in my element. I feel really good to finally be able to talk to my friends face-to-face. I feel like it really brings us together. It’s a lot of fun.”

The program is sticking strictly to the standards laid down by its permit with the county that Zucco had to amend several times to get approved. The balls for each court are color coded, the players are not allowed to fist bump, high five or make contact in any way and are encouraged to leave the park as soon as practice is over.

Those restrictions did not put a damper on the festivities for any of the players on Monday.

“It’s been amazing being able to come outside and play with all my friends,” said KC Buzianis, an eighth grader at Kalama Intermediate who plays for Zucco’s AVA club. “I feel very safe. We’re outside, so it’s much better than being indoors, and we’re staying six feet apart — everything’s all good.”

Zucco said he will run the program for these players for two weeks and then turn to another two sets of 16 players for a two-week run before school is scheduled to begin.

“I’m excited that the county and the state are able to work through whatever they had to work through to this point and we’re just all happy to be outdoors, playing, having fun,” Zucco said. “Our max number that we can ever have on the beach is 30, so I’ve taken that and kind of chopped it a little bit. This way it’s a lot easier to keep people separated and not have people crowded on one court.

“You don’t want to have 30 kids sitting on their butts — that’s what they’ve been doing for the last four months.”

Now, the AVA is waiting to turn these practices into competitions. Zucco’s Saturday tournaments have developed several standout players, including Colton Cowell and Amy Ozee at the University of Hawaii.

“We are a group, we are a league that is waiting to get our permit to play,” Zucco said. “So right now we’re only doing skills drills and team-based practices. Ideally we should be able to get it going relatively soon. We just have to make sure with the county that we have all of our guidelines and rules in place.”

At one point during opening instructions for the older group, Zucco and assistant coach Reilley Marrs demonstrated a no-touch celebration that included a pirouette in the air by each and fingers pointing to signify credit to their partners.

“It’s awesome,” said Marrs, a 2018 King Kekaulike graduate. “I started playing here when I was younger and seen it go away over these past months. To be able to come back and coach and see these girls play, it’s really awesome. We’re getting a lot more lessons in and a lot more camp, so to see these kids come back and play tournaments when we can, I love it.”

Marrs is getting the chance to develop his coaching skills on the beach — he was the head coach for the Seabury Hall junior varsity girls indoor team last fall in addition to being an assistant coach with the AVA, which saw its club season cut short in March.

“We were planning on going on a whole bunch of trips this summer, so these are all the girls that were in the indoor season and so I’m really happy to see them continue their volleyball career because they’re so young,” Marrs said. “They’re so good and it’s just fun to see them play a lot of volleyball.”

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.