After the loss of seven seniors, girls’ volleyball is revamping their team with fifteen athletes who are eager to step foot on the varsity court. For the past couple of years, most of the girls on the team had three to four years of experience at Perry or at club. This year, however, the team has a lot more underclassmen who are new to varsity.

“We just need to get those girls as many reps and touches as possible,” said Coach Fred Mann about the girls who moved up to the varsity team.

Last season, the team was undefeated until the state final championship game against Hamilton where they fell just short, ranking them second in the state. When discussing goals, both Mann and senior team captain Jordan Suan said that their goal is always to shoot for state champions. 

“Obviously, like everyone’s goal, it’s to win state, but just to connect as a team unit and just be close as a team,” said Suan, “I feel like the team chemistry will allow us to play better.”

Mann also hopes that the girls find more than just athletic success out of their season. He tries to implement team bonding and other activities that help the athletes build their characters and strengthen them mentally and physically.

“Ultimately why does a kid play a sport? [The goal is to create] Character building… [to] face challenges… [to] overcome challenges… There’s a lot of aspects to being on the team other than winning and losing,” said Mann. 

Suan is a varsity veteran and expressed her excitement for the upcoming season especially because of the new varsity members. “We have a lot of younger talent so we’re excited to get them all ready to play and for the future of our program,” Suan said.

Strategically, Mann described some of the team’s strengths that he has noticed since the team was finalized on Friday the 13th. Although it is still early to tell, he highlights the team’s passing, ball control, and defense all as strong abilities. 

“Hopefully that [ball control is] something they can continue because when you’ve got good ball control it kind of leads into some success in other areas,” said Mann.

The team has gotten to state finals two years in a row and fell short both times, both times also being to rival schools (Basha in 2019, Hamilton in 2020). Mann has been working hard to get the girls over this and help pin-point what is going wrong.

“Playing tough competition like Hamilton will be the most challenging part of the season,” said sophomore Isabella Blackwell. 

To start the season, girls’ volleyball is scheduled to play their first match on September 1 against Mountain Pointe.