Boy's Volleyball | 10/17/2025 11:21:00 PM

Mt. Pleasant, SC – When Wyatt Berchtold arrived at Oceanside Collegiate Academy in 2022, he came as one of the top-ranked boys tennis players in the state of South Carolina.
 
Berchtold, now a senior and leader of the Landsharks' sixth-ranks boys' volleyball team, played varsity doubles at Wando High while still an eighth grader at Cairo Middle School in the spring of 2022. When he made the decision to attend high school at OCA, the plan was to continue playing tennis.
 
That planned changed once he got to OCA.
 
"I played tennis all my life," Berchtold said. "My sister played tennis and I kind of wanted to be like my older sister, so I followed her. I loved it. I loved it just as much as I love volleyball now but I eventually kind of got burnt out and that's when I went to the first Oceanside volleyball practice.
 
"My very first year I went to an open gym and from then on I kind of fell in love with that team environment that tennis lacked and just that team camaraderie really drew me into the sport."
 
The transition from tennis to volleyball was remarkably easy for Berchtold, with the biggest transition being a change in mind-set from individual to team.
 
"In terms of working with my teammates, yeah, it took me a little bit to get out of my comfort zone, but, once I did, it was so fun," Berchtold said. "I found that I picked up the mechanics of volleyball fairly easily. My tennis serve was very similar to the arm swing in volleyball and the hand-eye coordination is the same as well, so I feel like it was a pretty easy transition for me."
 
At 6-foot-4 and an athletic 165 pounds, Berchtold found that he not only loved the sport of volleyball, he excelled at it. He helped lead Oceanside to its first state title in boys' volleyball last fall and in doing so earned Class 3A Player of the Year honors. He has been an All-Region performer for the Landsharks in each of his previous three seasons, and that shouldn't change this year.
 
"By the time I came on board he had already been playing for quite some time, but some of the motions from tennis are similar to volleyball," Landsharks coach Jorge Riesgo said. "The way they serve in tennis is very similar to the way you hit a volleyball. I think that correlation had a lot to do with him being able to transition from one sport to the other so quickly.
 
"He also works hard every day, at least he has from the first day I met him. He is always playing, going to different tournaments with his travel team. Even when he is not with a team, he is always outside playing, and that hard work is the main reason he has been able to get where he is."
 
The Landsharks, in their first season under Riesgo, carry a 16-1 record into the final weekend of the regular season. They will square off against Bridges Prep (1-13) and Cane Bay (9-6) in the first two matches of the Lucy Beckham Tournament with the goal of getting a rematch against the Tigers, who stopped OCA's 22-match win-streak that dated back to a 3-2 loss to Beckham on Senior Night, last October 17.
 
Before the 3-1 loss to Beckham on Wednesday, the Landsharks had lost just 12 sets all year.
 
"I don't know how the tournament will work out because there are three pools of teams, but there is a chance we would meet them in the tournament," Riesgo said. "It would be a little bit of a revenge game for us, but Lucy Beckham has a really solid squad."
 
When OCA faced Beckham last week, it was the final game in a stretch of six games in eight days.
 
"I wish we had not been so tired for that game," Riesgo said. "We had been playing a lot of games and you could see the kids were tired. We've been resting since then, not going as hard in practice so, if we get to play them again, hopefully we will give them a better match."
 
With one state title in the OCA trophy case, Berchtold said this season has been different from past years because the Landsharks have been the hunted.
 
"The team we play have gotten better because there are more guys playing volleyball now," Berchtold said. "We had a very good team last year with a lot of seniors. We are good again this year because of the young players who returned and because of the others who joined the team.
 
One of those newcomers is senior setter Chase League, who has played with Berchtold as a member of the Palmetto Strikers Club team for the last few years. League came to Oceanside from Stratford High and has had an immediate impact.
 
"Obviously it is nice to have someone else on the team who has played travel ball," Riesgo said of League. "He is the one who choose who to set the ball to and he has a lot of knowledge of the game. He has really helped me run the kind of offense we want to run. A lot of team have trouble at that position, but we have really benefited from having him in our program."
 
Like the 2024 team, the 2025 Landsharks are loaded with veteran players. In addition to Berchtold and League, OCA has seven other seniors on the roster. That list includes Sullivan Mann, Ashden Holtkamp, Liam Nuttall, Donnie Giron, Nolan Hammond, Nick Cunningham and Robert Hemingway. The roster also includes three juniors, seven sophomores and three freshmen.
 
"We have five seniors who played last year and gave us something to build on," Riesgo said. "But the rest of the team is basically brand new to volleyball this year. Nick Cunningham was one of those new players, but he jumped right into the middle, a position we needed to fill, and he has done pretty well. Ashden is also new to the sport, and, like Nick, he has filled in pretty nicely. They have all done a really good job of coming into practice and working hard."
 
With the regular season coming to an end on Saturday, the next step for the Landsharks is to begin defense of that 2024 state title. The SCHSL Tournament will announce pairings for the Class 4A Tournament on Sunday, with play in the first round scheduled to start on Tuesday.
 
Riesgo, who was OCA's assistant coach last year, switched places with Doug Smith after Smith made the decision to step back some from his coaching duties due to outside responsibilities. But very little has changed within the program, and both coaches are every bit as involved.
 
The only difference this year, according to Riesgo, is the Landsharks are now the hunted, not the hunter.
 
"The whole mind-set of being the hunted makes it a different game in terms of mentality going into the tournament," Riesgo said. "Winning it last year, we all want to have that feeling again."
 
Oceanside is the highest ranked team in the state outside of Class 5A and will likely be the No. 1 overall seed for the 4A tournament. That means the Landsharks will play all their tournament games at home with the first-round set for October 21 with the quarterfinals and semifinals set for October 23 and 28.
 
The state championship match will be played at 11 a.m. on Saturday, November 1, at Dreher High in Columbia.
 
Berchtold said the Landsharks will do the same things they did last year in preparation for the tournament.
 
"I think we're pretty much doing the same things we've always been doing, hustling at practice," Berchtold said. "Coach Jorge has very high expectations for us, especially since we won the state championship last year, so we're just going to keep on grinding."
 
The grind won't stop for the Landsharks once the season is over. Some will continue to compete on club teams while others move on to play other sports. For Berchtold, it will be Palmetto Strikers for the spring before heading to George Mason University in the fall where he has signed to play for the Patriots, which is something he has been working toward for a while.
 
"I've actually been reaching out to the George Mason head coach Jay Hosack since my sophomore year," Berchtold said. "That's when I started playing club and that's when you usually want to start to build a relationship with the coaches.
 
"Last summer I had a camp there and I was able to talk with the coach. I was able to show a lot of what I can do at camp and then he asked me to come up just this last weekend for an unofficial visit and he gave me the offer, showed me around campus and then later that day I made my commitment there."
 
George Mason is 16-13 in its 10^th season under Hosack, who has also been a coach for the USA Men's National and Junior National teams, including a stint from 2015-17 as head coach of the Men's Junior National team.
 
For Berchtold, choose George Mason was not just about playing volleyball. He was also focused on the school because of the academic fit it provides for him. He will already be a sophomore academically when he gets to Fairfax, Va., in August thanks to the dual enrollment classes he has be able to take while at Oceanside.
 
"Since my sophomore year I've been taking dual enrollment classes," Berchtold said. "Staying on track of these classes is hard because you're not there every day, you have to work outside of school. During my junior year, I transitioned to full dual enrollment classes, which is pretty much a college schedule. Now, as a senior, I just have one class in person every other day, but I have multiple online classes, which is just how it's going to be at George Mason."
 
Berchtold said the decision to attend Oceanside instead of Wando was the best decision he has ever made.
 
"The professor to student ratio at Oceanside is very small and that means you are able to build more of a relationship with your professors," Berchtold said. "When I looked at Wando, I knew I would be spending eight hours a day sitting in a class, many that I really didn't need. At Oceanside, every single minute is spent learning. You have to learn time management, and that really prepares you for college."
 
Once he arrives at George Mason the focus will be on one of two tracts, Forensic Science or Bioengineering. He said he will make that decision soon so he can focus his efforts in the spring on classes that will give him a step in the right direction.
 
"If I do end up taking the Biochemistry route, I'll probably pick up a calculus class next semester to knock out classes that might be hard to manage as a Division I athlete next year," Berchtold said.
 
He said the option of going into Forensic Science comes from two places, an aunt who was an agent for the FBI and an interest driven by TV shows like CSI.
 
But that life decision will wait until after the Landsharks complete their mission of winning a second state title.
 
"Right now, I am focused on playing my game and having fun," Berchtold said. "I know we are going to play against some of my club teammates in the state tournament. We've all been working to get better, and it is going to be fun to compete against them and then get together at the end of the season to see how much progress we have made as a club team. I know we have a tournament in Rock Hill in November, and I am looking forward to that."

About Oceanside Collegiate Academy: Oceanside Collegiate Academy (OCA), located in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., serves high school students in a safe, small and family-centered setting. Our students seek the opportunity and challenge of rigorous curriculum, high academic standards and elite athletics while earning up to two years of college credit. OCA serves students in grades 9-12 using an honors curriculum in 9th and 10 grades with a dual enrollment curriculum in 11th and 12th grades Learn more about OCA by visiting our website at OceansideCollegiate.Academy and by following us on social media on Facebook, Instagram and X. For video content, visit our YouTube channel.