By NOVA CROSS
Sheridan High School Student
The Sheridan Student Column is brought to readers by Sheridan High School’s 10th grade English class, taught by Abby Williams.
After some serious struggles last year in our volleyball season, we have made substantial improvements this year as a team.
In our 2021 volleyball season, I was a freshman. I have played volleyball since seventh grade, but I missed the eighth-grade season due to an injury. Coming from playing in middle school, going into high school varsity volleyball was a huge jump for me. It was definitely nerve-wracking my first few games. It didn’t take long for me to adjust to the different pace of the game.
Our record from last year’s season was 2-23, being 1-6 in the HHC. Against most teams, we never won a set and very rarely competed. In my opinion, we did not connect well as a team most days. It was kind of like we were playing more for ourselves and not together. We also had two setters last season, but that changed this season as the other setter graduated. We had to make some changes if we wanted to improve.
This year, I am the only setter on the team, meaning I run a lot of the offense. I think overall, compared to last year’s season, we have improved extensively. I am very proud of the way this season has gone. Many of the games have not gone our way in the end and there is still an enormous number of things we need to work on, but we are competing with teams this year. We have won sets against teams that we usually don’t compete with. Since the beginning of this season, I think we have vastly improved and are feeling more comfortable playing together.
We have definitely surprised many teams this season. For example, we played Hamilton Heights on Thursday, Oct. 6. Last season we lost 0-3, not scoring above 16 points in all sets. This season, we won the first set 25-22, pushing the game into four sets. This is the first time since 2013 the volleyball team has won a set against them. In the end, we did lose, but I definitely think we surprised them. I think once they got a few plays into the first set, they found out we would not be going down easily. We played extremely well and competed with them. In the end we lost, but not because of us not putting our all into it or us just making stupid mistakes. Even with the mistakes we did make, they were understandable. Heights is just a tough team, and we knew it would be a night that we had to go out with a positive attitude.
Our volleyball season has come to an end as Heights was our last game before sectionals. In sectionals, we got a bye in the first round. The winners of Cascade and University are who we would play. Their game ended with Cascade on top, who had a record of 20-13. Their record was better than ours, but we knew we did have a chance at winning. Saturday morning, Park Tudor and Covenant Christian played. Park Tudor won that game so they would play in the Championship later that night. We played right after them against Cascade. The game went into three sets.
I was so nervous playing that my stomach hurt. I finally got over my nerves eventually and played the best that I knew how. We ended up losing all three sets. Cascade went on to play Park Tudor in the championship and lost. I was super upset that we lost because I knew they were beatable.
My sophomore season is by far the best season of volleyball I have had, and I’ve enjoyed and will cherish every moment of it. I cannot wait to see what is in store for next season.