The junior varsity boy’s volleyball team ended their season with an undefeated record. They have been able to excel this season due to the ranging skill levels of players.
“I think we have a lot of guys that have been playing volleyball for a while, and we all know our role so we just stay in our lane, do what we do best, and play to our strengths,” sophomore Tyler Gelrud said.
The JV team had a big game against Tucker that almost led to an end to their undefeated record. Most of their games go to three sets due to their starting lineup playing for the first set, and then their B team playing for the second set. This typically leads to them battling it out with their opponents in the third set.
“We should have beaten them by a lot, but it ended up being really close in the third [set], and we kept going back and forth alternating points, and we just had to take a deep breath and lock in, and then we won,” sophomore Paxton Crank said.
With the team being majority sophomores, it has been important for them to prepare the younger players for next year since most of the sophomores will likely move up to varsity.
“Next year they should definitely be ready because all the sophomores, you know, kind of train them up. […] It’s kind of like handing the torch to them, and it’s a good feeling when you are able to teach somebody something and they learn from it,” sophomore Jayson Tubbs said.
Although it is often assumed that varsity is better than junior varsity, this year our boy’s JV volleyball team maintained a more successful record than the varsity team. Even though JV celebrates their record, they acknowledge that the varsity team is faced with different competition.
“Varsity is a lot harder. Varsity obviously hasn’t done as well as us, but they have a lot harder matches with a lot of good teams. They have a decent record for having all the challenges that they faced this year,” Crank said.
At practice, the JV team knows when to focus knowing there is a big game coming up, but that doesn’t stop them from joking around and having fun. They believe it is important to stay hyped going into games to keep the team’s morale up.
“We do our warm-ups together making sure we’re like in sync, and I think a big thing is before we even do handshakes, we always get hype in the back. And then when the starting lineup goes on and the whole team huddles up, we just kinda be loud and show the other team that we have more energy and we want it more than them,” Gelrud said.
It is important in volleyball to have a positive mindset and focus on the next play after mistakes.
“It’s really just all about trusting your teammates. You can’t really let anything get to you. You swing into the block, you just have to trust your liberos there to pick the ball up, and if you get set again, you just have to crush the next one,” Tubbs said.
The JV team ended their season on Oct. 29 with a 2-0 win against Maggie Walker. Their end-of-season record was 18-0.
