Valencia Coach Is a Smooth Operator

Set it, spike it, blend it, juice it.

When Zach Ambrose isn’t coaching the Valencia High girls’ volleyball team, he’s concocting health smoothies at a juice bar in Valencia.

Ambrose, manager at Juice Stop, has added two volleyball drinks to the menu: the Side Out, a combination of peaches, strawberries, oranges and bananas; and the Volley, with raspberry sherbet and blueberry and boysenberry yogurt.

“Juicing” is one of the bigger fads in Southern California, a fact that isn’t lost on Ambrose, 21.

“I don’t know how long it’s going to last, but in California, as long as it’s hot, you’re going to sell,” said Ambrose, a former opposite hitter at Saugus High.

“I think we’ve got a pretty strong [client] base right now. We get the same ones coming in every day.”

Tamara Fishel, a junior on the team, works with Ambrose in the store, which also offers, among other items, shots of wheat grass juice--an herbal energy booster--and the Power Pack, a drink with 51 vitamins and minerals.

“Everything you can need for the day,” Ambrose said.