Back in August, Girls Varsity Volleyball coach Zachery Sinn had his team write down their goals for the season. Senior Moriah Eaddy wanted to become more confident in her position as a team captain.
“Some of my goals were to be a good teammate and a good captain and to build confidence in myself,” Eaddy said. “It’s been hard, I would say, for the confidence thing, but my teammates lift me up and help me be a better player on and off the court.”
This support from teammates is a thread that ties the team together. Playing together since freshman year, the team has a strong connection. Similarly to Eaddy, senior and captain Savannah Thomas set a goal to be more confident.
“If I looked down or anything, [my teammates] would lift me up,” Thomas said.
Sitting together at lunch and hanging outside of school together, the team has become close over the years, making a noticeable difference on the court.
“[The team is] willing to do anything in practice, we work them really hard,” Sinn said. “They are willing to run through a brick wall in order to get a ball up. They are really supportive of each other. They’re a really tight group outside of the gym, which is super helpful.”
Despite team chemistry, the season started on a difficult note with some tough losses. These initial challenges, according to several team members, came down to the over-arching theme of grit.
“We’ve heard that word a lot this entire year,” senior and captain Kristen Tang said. “We need the grit to push through each game, through each practice, through basically everything.”
At the beginning of the season, the team had to come up with what grit meant to them.
“We, as a team, said that grit was working hard, consistently, and not giving up in situations where we might be down 19-22 in a set,” Eaddy said. “Grit is finding a way to keep fighting no matter what the score is and keep playing our game no matter what the outcome is.”
The team is fighting hard to succeed on Oct. 28-31 at the regional tournament, hosted at home. Seeded to play rivals Niles West in the first game, anticipation runs high.
“We haven’t won against them in god knows how long,” Tang said. “Every time we’ve lost against them, we’ve wanted it more and more and more and more. So I think that this game will be very, very exciting.”
The tournament is “play-till-you-lose,” so the team has to beat West in order to advance any further. Come watch the team at the home Regional, and hopefully watch them make history.
