Starting July 28 and ending Oct. 11, varsity volleyball’s season lasts longer than many other Archer sports seasons. This season was filled with challenges and triumphs as the team navigated the Gold Coast league, ending with a record of six wins and 10 losses.
Varsity volleyball co-captain Sara Salehi (’26) started playing volleyball at Archer in sixth grade and joined the varsity team last year as a sophomore. In the team’s previous league, they consistently placed in the top three. She said making the switch to a more competitive league was difficult, as they were no longer one of the stronger teams.
“This season was definitely a challenge because we moved up in leagues, but I really think that our team was able to push through,” Salehi said.
Junior Serenity Jones said this season was even more tough because many players on the roster graduated last year, resulting in a team of 10 players, with only one senior. The fact that the most of the players were freshmen and sophomores contrasted with the previous year’s dynamic, which featured more upperclassmen.
“We’re the underdogs,” Jones said. “We’re the shortest and the smallest team.”
Sophomore Sophie Shafipour joined varsity volleyball last year and agreed that preparation this season required different types of training. In addition to physical training, mental training and skills practice, collaboration was essential to improving as a team, Shafipour said. She said these factors helped the team overcome obstacles such as height, team size and their newness to the league.
“At the beginning of practice, we always have a time where we go in with the team,” Shafipour said. “We kind of set individual goals for yourself that you have and team goals.”
While having a team mostly of underclassmen was a new dynamic, Shafipour believes it will help the team improve in the years to come.
“It’ll be great [for future years], especially because the underclassmen this year really experience what it’s like to mentally prepare and really go in with the mindset, rather than just thinking it’s all physical,” Shafipour said. “Obviously, volleyball is a very physical sport, but this season really showed that we can do hard things.”
Another benefit of having so many underclassmen on the team, Salehi said, was that the team became closer as there was less of an age difference than in prior years.
“We’re really close in age and close in character as well,” Salehi said. “Volleyball is very mental in general, and so you really have to lean on your teammates — you can’t go through a season without becoming really close.”
Salehi said her favorite win of the season was their last: an away game against Crossroads School many people had not expected them to win. She described Archer’s team as “underdogs,” and said despite many obstacles, they had a very successful season.
“Maybe [Crossroad’s] lineup was a little bit better than ours was, but we really pushed hard, and we trained really, really hard, and although we didn’t go to playoffs, I’m really proud of our team,” Salehi said. “I think if we played in our old group with this team, we would have won more games, but we wouldn’t have improved as much as we did.”
