A state qualification. It’s what so many high school athletic teams dream of and the Yutan girls volleyball team accomplished last year. But this accomplishment only made them hungry for more.

“The main goal of the season is to win as many games as possible, win a conference championship, host a district final and win three games at state,”  head volleyball coach Jodi Bierman said. “We know that we have a more challenging schedule this year, but ultimately, we think we can really compete and want to accomplish those things.”

One of the first steps towards achieving their goals is replacing the two lost senior starters from last year.

“We need to fill those spots we had last year. Every season is a new season, and we just have to adjust to the people we have on the court now,” junior Mylee Tichota said. “You need all six people on the court to always be on the same page, and that sometimes is what newer teams struggle with.”

Finding people to fill those positions isn’t hard, however. This year, the volleyball team is the biggest it has ever been since this year’s seniors have been playing with a total of 24 players. While this is a benefit to fill up spots, it’s also hard to get all of the new players up to pace. 

“We have a lot of underclassmen that we need to get to know better,” senior Mckenna Jones said. “This is the biggest we’ve been since I’ve been playing. So we have a lot of new players that have a lot of talent but a lot to learn. In practice, we scrimmage varsity versus JV, which gives JV harder competition to push them to get better.”

Besides getting new players up to speed, the volleyball team is already working on specific skills to prepare themselves for tough opponents and has pinpointed some top areas they need to improve on.

“Defensively, we need to get after more balls, make better reads and have cleaner passes. Offensively, we need to have high efficiency from the pins and work in our middle more consistently so opposing blockers have more choices to process,” Bierman said.

In order to hone in on these skills, the team has stressed the importance of putting in all their effort, no matter what. They have seen this benefit them in practice firsthand by encouraging each other to try their hardest. 

“Something we talked about a lot is just putting in effort, even if we have off days. What we can control is the amount of effort we put into each play, which is what we are trying to stress this year,” senior Gabi Tederman said.

All in all, the team has been able to create a good environment both in practices and games that they are hoping will help them to achieve their goals. 

“The team’s environment has been really, really positive,” senior Millie Dieckman said. “I really enjoy it, and I hope it stays this way throughout the year.”