Abby edwards 

The crowd cheered and everyone dog piled in the middle of the court as the celebration began for the volleyball team. After falling short almost a year earlier in the state championship, the volleyball team’s hard work and dedication finally paid off Oct. 21 when the team won the 5A state title.

Going into the season, the girls knew what was expected of them, and they were all willing to do the work to accomplish the goal. With the expectation to win the state championship 20 years from the last time they won, the team understood what the goal was. 

“There was more dedication to the little things like our basic skills and focusing each practice and not looking at an end goal,” junior outside hitter Greer DeLeon said. “Obviously the end goal was winning state, but we had to do little things to get there. We went into our games focusing on each point, not focused on winning the game.”

With the pressure they faced to win the championship, the team understood that they didn’t have to win every game or every set, but they had to come out on top. Volleyball games are won by whichever team wins three sets first, but overcoming the challenge of losing a set here and there helped the team to take home the championship.

“No matter how many sets we win, they can always come back, and we can’t let that completely ruin our game or give up in the third set because we think we’ve already won the game,” senior setter Clare Kierl said.

While the team faced pressure to win, they focused on things they could control such as their attitudes and effort. One of the main goals for this season was to stay positive.

“Our coach is really good,” DeLeon said. “If someone’s being negative, she’s gonna balance them out and tell them to take a step back and just be positive for our teammates because someone bringing down the whole team can obviously be a bad environment. We focused on putting our own thoughts and feelings aside and everything that came out of our mouths was positive, and bringing each other up.”

While positivity was the big focus for every game and practice, the team chemistry helped them to win the championship.

“I know a lot of times, myself and other people get frustrated on the court when things aren’t going our way, or the way we want them to go, so positivity and staying calm in any situation we were in really helped us to play how we play and not get super anxious or mad at each other,” senior libero Taylor Vann said. “We just had really good team chemistry with everyone, so I think that really just helped us all be together and stay together as a team.” 

The team throughout the whole season did extra activities outside of practice and games to help form their bond. Even during the state tournament, they were focused on staying together. 

 “We met the night before each game, and we just kind of talked about what we were nervous about going into the next day, and we were just talking about how we were going to stay positive,” outside hitter sophomore Charlotte Nelson said. “So we stayed together a lot, and we were all on the same page again.”

The team formed a bond on and off the court that they were able to carry through to win the state championship. 

“We put a lot more time into it, and I think we were more confident going into it,” junior middle blocker Olivia Metz said.

Other teammates agreed, Nelson feeling the team was more mentally prepared for the state championship, which helped them take home the win. 

 “I feel like when we played the Mount last year a lot of people didn’t really think that we could do it, so this year we just all were on the same page,” Nelson said. “We were just really positive and ready for any outcome.”