Girls’ VB: lost 10 seniors, still taking life by storm

The volleyball team is a force to be reckoned with. Last year, their record was 19-6, but this year they are currently 9 wins-7 losses. Senior Captain Ruby Austin thinks they have played really well this season especially considering they lost 10 seniors from last year to this year.

While their team is made up of a lot of young players, they were all on a summer league team together so they were able to bond before school started. “Our team has a lot of really talented, determined players,” Austin said. “The challenge is definitely learning to work together and to trust each other.” 

They have a new coaching staff this year. The head varsity coach is Eliza Grose and the varsity assistant coach is Claire Michaels; the JV coach is Aliana Bennazar. According to Austin, Grose emphasizes positivity and learning something from every mistake. “I think it’s been nice for the team to have a new coach who takes the time to focus on each player individually especially since the team consists of a lot of young players,” Austin said.

This year, the varsity team has twelve players, with players from every grade. The seniors are Austin, Eve Jacoby, Marianna Mendoza, and Almila Abban; the juniors are Kiko Bhowmik, Ava Carey, Rowan Albertson, and Aliyah Kenney; the sophomores are Ella Austin, Keira Cunnife, and Olivia Nolan, and they only have one freshman: Rosalie Davis. Anyone can try out, but JV and varsity consist of 12-15 players each so there are always at least a few people that are cut. 

The other captain besides Austin is Carey. To choose captains, each of the players votes for two people and provides reasoning for their choices. The captains are the people with the most votes. As the captains, they do the coin toss before games, bring any team issues to coaches, and are leaders both on and off the court.

They practice from four to six p.m. every day after school in the high school gym, and their practices are usually built around the mistakes they made in prior games. They often work on tangible things like serve receive and hitting, but Grose equally focuses on intangible things like communication and maintaining positive energy. 

Additionally, they always spend time working on the basics. Every practice they start with 30 passes in a row and 30 sets in a row to a partner to work on consistency. “We also always practice our safe serve that we can use in tight games,” Austin said.

Austin loves volleyball because of “the ability to block and hit and the challenge of keeping the ball in the air.” She started playing in fifth grade after she quit gymnastics and she loved it and stuck with it. She plays volleyball year-round in a club, Summer League, and Baystate Games. “I’m hoping to play in D3 volleyball in college,” she said.

In order to achieve her goals, Austin has been putting extra focus into reading where the hitters are hitting so she can better anticipate where the ball is going and receive it better. She has been working on hitting at different spots. 

She thinks the biggest goal for the team is to fight for every point in every game and maintain positive energy and confidence in themselves and their teammates. “Some of my personal goals this season are to get more kills than I got last year, work on moving quicker, and get better on defense,” Austin said. 

Austin said she loves being on a team that pushes her but also has fun in both practices and games, participates in sleepovers, and gets food together before games. 

Their toughest opponents are always Longmeadow and Frontier because they are consistently solid teams with strong hitters and defensive players. This year, many teams in their league have also lost many seniors so their teams aren’t as good. They lost almost all their first-round league games but they play each of them again in the next few weeks. 

“I know that our team is capable of beating them and that’s what we intend to do,” Austin said, “but we need Canes Naysh, too.”