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Coming into this season, the NS volleyball team was unsure how the year would go, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, almost halfway through the season, they hope that they can carry the momentum from their recent successes.
“I think the expectations are the same every year–we put our best team on the floor that we can,” said head coach Rickie Stewart.
With 4 starters along with several other seasoned varsity players returning this year, the team is expected to compete in both region and state play.
Though pre-season and tournament play started off a little rocky, the Hawks have found their groove and are able to play better as a team.
“Early on we had our struggles, but…we’re starting to now have six rotation players,” Stewart said.
Currently they are 5-1 in region play, with seven region games left to play before the state tournament. NS has won their most recent games against Maeser Prep and ALA in only three sets.
The Hawks stiffest competition this year is expected to come from within their own region from defending state champions Union High School. NS’s recent game against Union went into five sets, with Union winning the first two 26-24 and 25-16. The Hawks took the next two sets 31-29 and 28-26, but fell behind in the fifth and lost 6-15. Still, NS is proud of how they competed against the defending state champions.
“At Union we competed and hung in there and played gritty the entire time,” Stewart said. “Not everyone played great, but they were tough enough that Union had to.”
Union is currently ranked number one in the state RPI, closely followed by Morgan and Grand. NS is ranked number seven.
“The goal is always to compete,” Stewart said. “RPI is obviously a big deal, so we want to be top four in the RPI by the end of the season. [On] Friday, we were sitting at fifth [in RPI], then over the weekend we dropped to eighth without playing, and we’ll just keep moving up with wins, especially in our region.”
To prepare for the upcoming games, the team has put in a lot of time, both on and off the court.
“We train really hard and make sure that we are developing skills and developing good people,” Stewart said. “We don’t ever want to be outworked by anybody.”
This year, NS has practiced in certain areas in order to become a more well-rounded team.
“We just train, and we train specific skills,” Stewart said. “This year our focus has really been on creating volleyball players instead of just [being] skilled in positions.”
One player who has worked hard in both practice and competition is senior Graciee Christiansen.
“Graciee is a game changer for us because she’s on the right hand side and not a lot of [teams] have offense on the right like we do,” Stewart said.
Christiansen plays outside or right side hitter.
“She’s playing all the way around; she’s a good leader, good server,” Stewart said. “So she’s really come along as being one that’s hard to stop.”
Christiansen says that the time in practice to work on specific skills has really helped both her and the team prepare for upcoming games.
“So we work on different skills every time we play, so it just depends on the game and who we’re playing,” Christiansen said.
And the work they put in in practice is paying off as they get further into the season and continue to play better.
“We definitely haven’t hit our peak yet, but we’re on our way for sure,” Christiansen said.
Junior Mekai Laupapa, another hitter on the team, says that they have worked on more than just playing volleyball.
“Attitudes, and our energy is a lot better on the court–we’re a lot more happy,” Laupapa said. “We just play a lot harder all the way around.”
With all the work they have put in, the team hopes that they will be able to win some more games and move up in the state RPI standings.
“Fifth place and up is probably where we should be,” Laupapa said.
But regardless of where they rank in RPI, the team hopes that they will still be able to compete in the state tournament.
“Wherever we land, we land,” Stewart said. “We have to win them all anyway to take state, and that’s always the goal, to be competitive at the state tournament.”
