Last year, Girls’ Varsity volleyball won the state championship. Yet this year’s team has struggled to keep themselves on top.

Before yesterday’s regular season ending game against Miramonte senior Mallory Loomis said, “We’re really excited, and it is always nervous going to their gym… we’ve been trying really hard, we’re prepared to stomp the mats.”

According to coach Scott Bishop, this year’s squad needs to develop team chemistry before the playoffs begin. “We put a lot of effort to building ourselves as a team.”  With the majority of last season’s team lost to graduation, and over half of the new players being freshmen, the team has been challenged to find an identity.

Bishop said that Junior, Annie Shurtz, who has been on Varsity since her freshman year, is the personality he sees this team rallying around. Loomis agreed, saying that, “as a sophomore, she was a starting player, and played really well.”

Loomis believes her team will make the playoffs.  Bishop believes a factor in his team’s continued success is the health they have maintained through the year. “We have an excellent trainer…Ray Abieto,” he said.