As this volleyball season has ended, it is hard not to reflect on the team’s accomplishments. The beginning of the season was worrying for some players due to having an entirely new coaching staff that did not include Coach Celie. Even with all of the sadness and reminders of Coach Celie, we decided that this season would be for her. The one thing that brought ease to the seniors’ minds was that the coach who would step up and take her place would be Coach Laurie Simon, someone that the seniors knew very well. 

The seven seniors who had grown up playing club volleyball had played under her. In Coach Celie’s memory, we had several things to remember her by. The first seat on the bench would always be empty because that is her chair; we would have purple game balls for every game; the players wore light purple ribbons in their hair, and each player had a pair of light purple shoelaces on their shoes. 

The volleyball team achieved some HUGE wins this season over ESA, Notre Dame, and Sam Houston. Going into the postseason, the girls stood at 26-14 and were the 3rd seed in the playoffs. With two sweeps in the playoffs, the girls were going into state, ready to face the #6 seed, Ascension Catholic. After a long 5-set match, our girls came on top with the win and moved on to the semifinals to face Westminster Christian. After returning in the third set with a win, the girls fell short in the fourth, losing to the Crusaders. Although it wasn’t the outcome the team had hoped, they were still very proud of the season. The team plans to continue bonding at Christmas with a Secret Santa event.