The volleyball team will compete against Marcus on Oct. 3 at 6:30 p.m. in the arena.
In the 2022-2023 season, the team finished sixth in the district with three wins and 11 losses, which prevented the team from making playoffs. Head coach Karin Keeney said a goal of the team this year is to make it to playoffs, meaning they have to be in the top four of the district. Currently, they are fifth in the district with a score of 16-17 overall.
“The season has gone up and down [so far],” Keeney said. “We’ve won more games already than we won all of last year. [We’ve] definitely made a huge step in improvement, [and] I’ve been very pleased.”
The team has a 3-4 score in districts for the 2023-2024 season. One of the biggest challenges the team faces is how young the team is, with only four senior athletes.
“We’ve taken all of our setbacks as major learning moments this year,” senior outside hitter Sophie Hoke said. “We’ve grown a lot as a team and as individuals confidence-wise; we [also work together] a lot better than we have in the past.”
Keeney said one of the biggest areas of improvement for the team is their confidence and competitiveness.
“We lacked confidence last year, so I see a lot of [difference] this year,” Keeney said. “[However,] in the big games I’m still seeing that lack of confidence. Off the court, we do some things to reiterate that they have control and they are stronger than they think they are. I want them to understand that they are so much better than what they play some nights.”
Coming into this season, the team had not beat Marcus since 2017. The team beat Marcus 2-0 in a tournament on Aug. 26 in Austin, and the Marauders are currently 6th in the district with a score of 1-5 in districts.
“The attitude and energy [is most different from last year],” junior middle Hailey Kersetter said. “Everyone wants to win and fight every game. There’s just games where we don’t show up [mentally] and it can be hard to get out of [those habits] where we’re down on ourselves, but we all have each other.”
Practices are from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. every day, except for Sundays. As the team begins playing more district games, Keeny said one of her goals is to create a closer team bond.
“I don’t think one player makes a team,” Keeney said. “[This year, the team] gets along really well [and] you don’t see the separatism that you saw last year. That can be hard when they don’t hold each other accountable because they are so close.”
