The ladies in Purple, the Big Sandy Pioneer Volleyball team came out of the locker room with an attitude and smiles on their faces. It was communicating they were going to have fun! They huddled up, swaying back and forth then leaned in. They were ready!
Shersteen Cline head coach of the Pioneers loves the game. She told me she played volleyball for Big Sandy for seven years since the 6th graders where pulled up that year, and then she played at a collegiate level at Montana Tech. "I had a really good coach, Sheri Roth. It was fun. The group of girls I played with made it enjoyable."
"We have a lot of young girls so we are building on fundamentals that we are going to need to be competitive. Mental toughness is something we are really trying to work on. Volleyball is such a mental game comparing to every other sport. You can't just have one player run away with it. It really is a team effort." She told me. Her goal this year; "I hope we improve every game, not back sliding. I'm really excited for this season and I hope people come out and support us."
There are 15 girls out for volleyball this season, so there will be a JV team. Also 6th graders are allowed to come out to help with the JR High team.
The senior leaders this year are Georgia Wortman and Jaylyn Cline. Georgia said, "I think this year will be really exciting. We have a lot of young girls. It will be fun to watch them grow." She sees this team as a team with real team effort. She wants to help everybody care about and support each other. Jaylyn Cline said, "I think we have a lot of adjusting to do this year. We have a lot of new girls. As a senior leader, my job is to help encourage girls to keep them on task."
And they did. They played with mental toughness. Played as a team. Played an exciting, fun to watch game. There was a good size crowd and everyone enjoyed the girl's efforts. Stacey Allderdice, Amanda Cline and Lainey Gregory all took dives to the floor. And even when they made mistakes, they got high fives from their teammates because of their effort. They didn't wallow in self-pity, they just jumped right back into the spirit of the game. There were kills, spikes, floaters, excellent serves and passes, and a nice push to a great floater. There are many terms you may not understand, only thing you need to know is that the game was fun to watch!
On both sides of me there was support. "Good serve, just not enough Wheaties." And then, "Wow great serve, just too much Wheaties", as it sailed out of bounds. A father yells, "good job guys!" and then he laughed, "I mean girls!" Girls running into each other in their effort. And after every point a small celebration as they encouraged each other.
There was a loud student section as the football boys were all at the game as well. After winning, the students formed a tunnel for the girls to run through. You won't want to miss this action at the next home game.
