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Just play volleyball, don’t be scared of failing. Make each match count and play every game to the best of your ability. With that in their minds, NS’s volleyball team approaches the end of their season.
They’ve done well with fifteen wins and ten losses. They’ve won over half their games so far. The season is headed to a close with the state competition next Wednesday and Thursday with their last region match tonight against Manti.
Despite some tough losses, the Lady Hawks are hopeful that they can do well at state.
“The doors kind of flew open on our 3A classification,” said assistant coach Jori Turpin. “A bunch of teams were beat- ing a bunch of teams, everyone was beating each other. So it kind of depends on if we show up or not and if we can play like we normally do.”
Now that region is anyone’s game, the team is going to have to work even harder if they want to come out on top. In order to physically prepare, practices are going to get harder and a little more intense.
“We know as a team that we struggle with being under pressure,” Turpin said. “We’ve been trying to do pressure sit- uations at practice to get them used to that, because it’s a whole different world.”
The girls can also build on the skills they already have. Due to a new decision made by the coaches, each girl has been taught how to play every position. They want to be strong in all areas of the court.
“We’ve kind of had a trend in the last couple of years of not having a six rotation player, meaning you would only hit or you would only play back row or such. We kind of wanted to get away from that as coaches,” said Turpin. “We’ve had everybody play every position, hopefully to get them more comfortable with playing a different position.”
As well as the girls learning new things, they’ve worked on the basics as well. When the team has got the fundamentals down, they perform even better in their games.
“Our passing is usually our bread and butter, we’re a really good passing team,” said Turpin. “When we have all of our three hitters going and we’re attacking from all sides, we’re untouchable.”
Not only do they have to be ready to play physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. A big part of that is their attitude as a team and as individual players.
“We’ve been preparing by practicing every day like we’re in a game, every ball matters,” said junior Phaedra Lamb. “I think being able to pick our- selves up and project a good attitude to our other teammates will help. We have the skill, now it’s just being consistent all the time.”
However, it can be hard to have a positive attitude all the time, especially in sports. The coaches try to remind the girls that while they do want to win, it’s important to have fun and it’s alright to make mistakes.
“We’ve struggled with this for a couple years. It’s the fear of failure that makes us fail,” said Turpin. “Instead of just pushing that to the side, just playing volleyball, and having a good time, we sometimes get in our own head and get in our own way.”
Once the girls are able to overcome the stress and pressure and just focus on the game, their playing improves. Going into a game with a good attitude and a clear mindset is important. When the team knows that it may be hard but they come together and play their best anyway is usually when they win.
“When we are playing teams that we know are going to be difficult, is when we play our best, because we go in knowing it’s going to be a battle,” said Turpin.
While attitude and skill are important, neither really mat- ter if the players can’t come together to be a team. Every person needs to be prepared and do their part to help the team.
“One person can’t do all the work and we all have to put in effort to win,” said senior Alexis Hansen. “We all get along and have a great time playing which makes things super fun.”
This year’s volleyball team hasn’t had problems with being a team and playing with each other. They all get along, work well together, and have fun. Both players and coaches will be sad to see the season end.
“The season has definitely been better than other seasons that I’ve been a part of; we all just love each other,” said Lamb. “Other years it was like we couldn’t wait for it to end, but this year we have fun and we practice hard.”
