Elaina Wang

Jefferson girls freshman volleyball team huddles and exchanges strategy before the game. “Collaboration and communication [are] very important in [volleyball],” Li said.

On Monday, Oct. 6th, the Jefferson freshman girls volleyball team beat the previously undefeated Hayfield Hawks in a straight-set victory, winning 2-0 over the league’s number one seed.

“It was so exciting,” freshman coach Morgan Vineyard said. “They worked so hard. I’m so proud of them. And to take the win from the only undefeated team left was super exciting.”

Having previously lost to Hayfield before, both the players and the coach implemented new strategies to bring out their best and take the win.

“We flipped our middles around a little bit,” Vineyard said. “Just to have a better matchup because they had one really good player.”

Despite being down both sets, Jefferson made two comebacks to take the lead. With freshman Noora Ahmad garnering over eight aces and the whole team having less than five serve errors in the second set, they won both sets in a close match of 26-24 and 25-23 respectively.

“Our serving lineup was very strong, which [meant] the other team couldn’t get the ball,” freshman Ivy Zhang said.

Despite their win, both players and coach believe that there are areas to improve on.

“It’s tough, because they’re all at such different levels,” Vineyard said. “We do a lot of team mixing, which helps them all play with each other, so it helps bring the ones that maybe are struggling a little bit, and then helps give some leadership skills to the girls that are already there performance wise.”

There are also multiple technical and hustle plays Vineyard commented on.

“We need to get better at serve receive,” Vineyard said. “Everyone needs to always be getting better at learning rotations and actually having positions.”

The Jefferson freshman girls volleyball team is now 8-2 going into their last few games of the year.

“They didn’t give up on any points,” Vineyard said. “They came from behind both sets, which is pretty impressive, [and] kind of hard to do. [They] kept their head in the game and stayed focused.”

In spite of their high spirits, everyone is continuing to learn and try to get better.

“I’m still learning,” Vineyard said. “I try to put everything in writing and also say it to the [team], to their face and make sure they’re listening to me. And I try to repeat myself as often as possible.”