With every ace and spike, the girls’ volleyball team has turned hard work into tangible results, achieving remarkable victories, awards and titles. Each match brought a sense of excitement and unity as parents and fans rallied behind the players, celebrating their every victory. However, to have these great achievements, the team had to overcome many struggles and obstacles, not only individually, but also as a team.
After the great success of last year’s team, the girls had some big shoes to fill and still manage to improve again this year.
“Everybody expected us to be very good this year, and that’s a lot of pressure on the team because we had achieved a lot of success last year. Last year, we tied second in the conference, made it to the tournament championship game and everyone knew we had a lot of returning players, so that pressure was a little bit of a struggle on how to manage that and still improve,” head coach Lauren Gillon said.
Thankfully, the team was able to rise to the occasion and persevere through these struggles placed on the team from the very beginning of the season.
“We were able to work through the inconsistencies, figuring out how to play as a similar group that we had last year, but still a new team with new dynamics and a lot of new additions that were really needed. Just figuring out how all the pieces were going to fit together while also having 16 players on the team, which is a lot of people on a team, was a great accomplishment of the season” Gillon said.
A big accomplishment of the year was the girls’ win against Reagan after three years, allowing the team to tie for first place in the conference.
“Winning against Reagan felt incredible, and even just winning that first set was such a huge accomplishment. After winning that first set, everyone had a sense of, ‘We can do this,’ and it almost felt surreal cause we blew them out in the fifth set and it was incredible. Let’s just say I cried really really hard,” senior co-captain Chloe Randell said.
The team had to dig deep and come together as a fully functioning team to secure the win against such a powerful rival school.
“It [winning against Reagan] was one of the best moments of my life. We worked really hard and really focused on our bond as a team, and I believe we had a stronger team bond and morale that eventually led to their [Reagan’s] loss,” junior co-captain Anna Hege said.
Another huge accomplishment of the season was that five players were given All-Conference awards, an award only given to 15 players in the conference. Winning an All-Conference title is a very rigorous and challenging process. Coaches from the entire conference will nominate players they believe should be a part of the All-Conference list, which then will be whittled down to only 15 players that will receive the All-Conference player award. The five players who received this award included: senior Chloe Randell, junior Anna Hege, sophomore Hadley Lichty, sophomore Ella Lamoureux and sophomore Aurora Rosa.
As the season comes to a close, this volleyball team’s success story will serve as inspiration for future athletes. These achievements will remind athletes that hard work, perseverance and dedication will always pay off. The team is looking forward to the future and improving each year for many years to come.
