Erik Snow will play college soccer at San Jose State University. He will leave his mark on the Maui Interscholastic League and Seabury Hall not only on the pitch, but also on the volleyball court.

Snow, a 6-foot-4, 180-pound middle blocker for the MIL Division II champion Spartans, was the near unanimous choice of the league's coaches as MIL Player of the Year for boys volleyball.

Seabury Hall, a league power in the sport, won its first boys volleyball title in four seasons with an unbeaten run through the league.

''It makes me feel great,'' Snow said to The Maui News ''It was just cool to see our entire team finally play to our potential — I was just really happy to be a part of that.''

Now, it is on to SJSU to play NCAA Division I soccer. Competitive volleyball will become a thing of the past.

''I am going to miss it for sure, but more than just volleyball, I will miss playing on high school teams, just being able to play a bunch of different sports with a bunch of different people,'' Snow said.

Have no doubt, this soccer player was the class of the MIL volleyball season. On the coaches' ballots, he was the top-ranked player on all but one — and he was the second-rated player on that vote.

''He meant an awful lot to us,'' said Seabury Hall coach Caleb Palmer, the MIL Coach of the Year. ''He brought a whole new level of leadership, raised his game with that leadership. He was very comfortable in that role and his talent was always there before. He led us to an undefeated season through shear determination and a really good work ethic. And, oh yeah, he is a great kid.''

Snow is joined on the first team by teammate Boddhi Karzen, Kamehameha Maui's Erwin DeCoite and Kamuela Kalehuawehe, Lahainaluna's Paul Salvador, and Hana's Kapena Kaiwi. All are seniors with the exception of Kaiwi, a sophomore.

This season was about the Spartans and their return to the top of the MIL, which had belonged to Hana in its run of league titles for the past three years.

The league's best teams — Seabury Hall, Hana and Molokai — were all in the Division II ranks, as has been the trend for the last decade. The league played a full round-robin where every team played each other once before breaking into divisions for the season-ending tournaments.

Palmer said that Snow could be a college volleyball player if soccer was not his choice of sports at the next level.

''Erik was a middle blocker, but he played all the way around,'' Palmer said. ''He has a great jump serve, he could attack out of the back row, he plays great sprawling defense and he can beat you at the net pretty much at will and also shut you down at the net. When you have a great player like that who can stop the other team's best player — but they can't stop yours — that is a a great part of winning.

''I definitely think, if he wanted to be, he could be a college volleyball player somewhere. I think he is just a great athlete and if he wanted to go that direction he could.''

Palmer said that with all his physical talents, Snow's most valuable asset may have been his leadership.

''There was a little bit of question from where it would come from for us,'' Palmer said of the leadership aspect. ''Every year you have different leaders step up in the past, but it wasn't part of his game until this season, possibly because we had other leaders around and didn't need it. This year there was a definite void and he filled it. He took the team under his wing and helped develop them.''

Snow said he watched former Seabury MIL players of the year Corey Spence and Kalani Thibodeaux lead the Spartans when Snow was a youngster. His desire to lead may have been born then — and this team was an easy one to lead.

''In past years sometimes we had just maybe some team bonding issues, our chemistry wasn't right,'' Snow said. ''This year we had a lot of underclassmen who stepped up and made the season we had possible with the way they played and their attitudes. The seniors really appreciated that.

''I remember watching the boys volleyball team play at Seabury when I was younger I always looked up to the guys who could play and lead and that is really where all my interest in the sport came from.''

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