By Kallie Hand
What are you looking forward to this season?
- Alivia Winter (Senior): “I am looking forward to seeing my team improve and get closer. I am hoping we will work towards some wins for the rest of the season.”
- Savahanna Svalen (Senior): “I am excited to see our team improve each game and see personal achievements. I love playing on our home court since our fans are crazy good this year. I really hope we can show our fans how hard we actually have worked this year and win a couple of games in our upcoming schedule.”
- Haley Sander (Senior): “I am looking forward to improving a lot during the rest of the season. We all finally learned how to work together, and I am excited to see how the rest of our season goes. I am also looking forward to seeing our fans and student section during playoffs.”
- Bret Duchamp (Junior): “I was looking forward to playing, but during warmups of the first game I tore my ACL and meniscus which outs me out the rest of the season. But I’m excited to see how the girls improve and how they can work through the challenges.”
- Nadelly Neubert (Junior): I am excited to see our team keep climbing, not just together but as individuals. We see improvement after each game we play. I am mostly looking forward to the home games because we have such an amazing crowd cheering us on and dressing as the themes we plan.”
- Izabelle Ostenaa (Junior): “I am looking forward to improving on our communication and staying motivated through all of the games we play. I am also looking forward to getting a win.”
What is a personal goal you have set for yourself?
- Alivia Winter (Senior): “I hope to get better with my blocking. I also hope I can get All-Conference.”
- Savahanna Svalen (Senior): ” I hope to play the back row for at least three games this year. I really hope I can get All-Conference this year or All-Conference honorable mention.”
- Haley Sander (Senior): “I set a goal to lead in digs and to have a higher average in kills. I would also like to get All-Conference.
- Bret Duchamp (Junior): “I personally like to come back next season stronger.”
- Nadelly Neubert (Junior): “I personally am working on being a leader on the team. We struggle with communication and letting easy things drop. So, I am deciding to make a change and go above and beyond when I’m on the court.”
- Izabelle Ostenaa (Junior): “I am personally working on trying to be a better outside hitter and to remember to get up for blocking. Also, I am trying to become more of a leader, talking more, and motivating my teammates.”
What are some things you need to work on as a team or as an individual?
- Alivia Winter (Senior): “We need to work on communication, being aggressive, and minimizing errors. I need to work on my time for blocking.”
- Savahanna Svalen (Senior): “We need to communicate a lot more. Personally, I need to work on my blocking and my back row.”
- Haley Sander (Senior): “We all need to work on communication and trusting each other, we also need to work on minimizing our serving errors. Personally, I think I need to work on timing for a few of my quick hits, and also I need to learn how to trust others.”
- Bret Duchamp (Junior): “Communication and not blaming people but supporting them.”
- Nadelly Neubert (Junior): “As I said earlier, we need to work on our communication as a team, we would be much more successful if we communicated more. Individually, I feel I need to hustle more and think of my form when passing so we can set the ball up.”
- Izabelle Ostenaa (Junior): “We really need to work on communicating and personally work on getting more of a consistent hit.”
What are some of the team’s strengths?
- Alivia Winter (Senior): “I think one of our biggest strengths is that we all have a strong bond and are very close.”
- Savahanna Svalen (Senior): “I think we have many strengths, including having fun and we have a very strong bond. We all get along very well and it will only get better throughout the year.”
- Haley Sander (Senior): “I think this is one of the closest teams I have ever been a part of, which helps with a lot of things on and off the court. There is no drama this year which is always super nice.”
- Bret Duchamp (Junior): “They try to work together and be a team with all the challenges they have faced.”
- Nadelly Neubert (Junior): “Our team has many strengths. We know how to have fun, which makes the game enjoyable. We pick each other up when we are feeling down or disappointed. We bond more and more every day which makes our team stronger.”
- Izabelle Ostenaa (Junior): “We have many strengths as a team, we are a really close team on and off the court. I feel like as the season goes on we become even more close. We are all just a really good group of friends.”
How do you expect the season to turn out?
- Alivia Winter (Senior): “I expect things to get better as the season goes on. I would like to see us pull off some good wins.”
- Savahanna Svalen (Senior): ”I personally was expecting it to turn out a lot better, but I think if we keep working hard, we could go far in playoffs.”
- Haley Sander (Senior): “I think it is going to continue to improve throughout the season. I think we are going to surprise a lot of upcoming opponents by showing them how well we can play together and how much we gave already improved.”
- Bret Duchamp (Junior): “Hopefully the girls will be able to turn it around and fight so they can make it far.”
- Nadelly Neubert (Junior): “As you may know, we are on a losing streak. There are no excuses for that. But I see us going places because we improve more and more every day. We already overcome multiple challenges, such as playing without Bret.”
- Izabelle Ostenaa (Junior): “This season has not been going the way we hoped for. But, as the season goes on we should be able to come to our full potential and play like we know we can.”
What do you do as a team to get ready for a game?
- Alivia Winter (Senior): “We have team meals before all games. We always watch the younger girls play. We spend a lot of time together just joking around.”
- Savahanna Svalen (Senior): “We always have tram meals and team bonding to get ready for a game.”
- Haley Sander (Senior): “We take turns hosting team meals, and for away games we take turns bringing treats.”
- Bret Duchamp (Junior): “We have little team meals before games where we eat food and just have good team bonding before the game to get us prepared.”
- Nadelly Neubert (Junior): “My favorite part of game day is “pregaming.” When we have home games, we go to one of the player’s houses and they host the team meal, we all take turns. So far we’ve had pasta at Bret’s, pulled pork at Haley’s, salsa chicken at Izzy’s and subs at mine.”
- Izabelle Ostenaa (Junior): “Before every game we always go over to someone’s house and have team meals and spirit buddies which is a treat that someone makes before a game. Also, when we are in the locker room we tend to jam out to music while we are all getting ready for the game.”