Junior Sophia Duffy setting the ball. Photo by Roxane Leon.
The Volleyball season is soon coming to an end and the Girls Varsity Volleyball team is not going to stop giving their all until it the season ends. The team has a current record of 6-9 overall and 4-3 in the GBL.
Head coach, Daniel Jurkowski, stated that the varsity team has played “some high level volleyball matches, but have struggled with [their] consistency.” Jurkowski further explained that the team can “beat anyone on [their] schedule” when they are at their best. Though the team’s record is not the best, Jurkowski stated that they are “still fighting for a spot in the state tournament.”
The goal for the team is to win the GBL and make States. “[They] fell short of winning the GBL but competed in every league match. All three league games we lost were in five sets,” stated Jurkowski. Jurkowski believes that there is still time for the team to improve on their consistency. He also says that, for their games, they start off “a little flat,” and that they “need to come out playing with more energy.”
Junior Melissa Tan believes that the team is getting better for the fact that they get along well with each other. “Getting along is very important since it reflects on the way everyone plays.” Though Tan was on JV last year, she feels “that this year’s team has better chemistry.”
Tan also believes that the team got better at communication both on and off the court. On the court communication “is very important since it allows [their] teammates to know that [they] will get the ball.” Off the court the team is able to communicate well with each other because they get along well with each other and are “all pretty comfortable with one another.”
On the same topic, Junior Sophia Duffy stated that everyone on the team knows that they have each other’s back and “that allows [them] to leave it all on the court,” and “put [their] hearts into every game, knowing that when [they] fall [they] have multiple hands waiting to help [them] get back up.” Duffy also believes that by acting like a family caused them to reach “a new level of sisterhood that [she] [has not] seen in a volleyball team in [her] five years of playing.”
When asked about exceeding their expectations for this season Jurkowski said that there is still time to make going to States “a realistic possibility.”
Jurkowski would like to end the season with the team winning four more games, winning senior night against Chelsea and to qualify for the state tournament. Both Duffy and Tan would also like to make states this year.
Jurkowski further added that “[the team] deserve[s] that experience more than anyone, but will have to earn it on the court.” The team would need a record of 10-9 in order to qualify for States.
