Suffering five straight losses to begin the season, in which the boys volleyball team led 2-1 in three of the games, they took the time to restructure and reorganize their plan for the remainder of the season
For boys volleyball coach Bill Cush, the losses have come from simple “errors” and not following basic fundamentals.
“A lot of the sets we’re just putting in play, or we’re making hitting errors. We’re not putting balls away when it really matters most,” Cush said. “Some of the teams that have beat us have kind of just outscrapped us.”
According to captain Sawyer Jones, the volleyball team has seen progression and improvement from their “younger and less experienced” players each game.
“As they continue building varsity experience, they’re improving a ton. I’m confident we can turn it around because I’ve seen us improve on our mistakes and because we have been super close in a lot of our losses,” Jones said.
Cush believes the key to keeping morale high is taking every game one by one and avoiding being stressed out about whichever opponent they face each week.
”Every point’s only one. So we were trying to take every point, you know, one by one,” Cush said. “I think we need to kind of do the same as we move forward here. We need to take every game one by one.”
Following the zero and five start to the season, the volleyball team traveled to Quakertown High School for their seventh match of the season, coming out victorious 3-1 to get their first win of the season.
“I definitely think this could be the start of a nice streak for us,” senior Carson Pro said. “Looking away from our record, we can have a clean slate and look to tally on wins as the season progresses.”
Along with the victory and morale boost, junior varsity coach Sean Redmond has seen a growth in confidence with the younger and less experienced players as well.
“They’re starting to really become a cohesive unit, still growing in that department though,” Redmond said.
Looking towards the future of the season, Cush believes the volleyball team has to “look ahead” and show that the team never gave up and kept fighting throughout the season.
“We didn’t have the start to the season [that] we were looking for. We just put our heads down,” Cush said. ”You know, we got to work, and we started executing, and we started to win games.”
Jones also wants people to view the group as a team that “overcame adversity” and stayed committed through the good and bad.
“I want to look back and remember our team as one that stayed bought in and committed even after a rough start, and was able to turn things around,” Jones said. “I’m confident we can turn it around because I’ve seen us improve on our mistakes and because we have been super close in a lot of our losses. We could easily be 3-3 right now; we just haven’t pulled through on the close ones.”
As of April 11, the volleyball team sits at a two wins and six losses through eight games.