A group of women sidestep again and again, each pair of players moving around a set of four orange cones in the campus gym. Their faces change from energetic to tired as they slowly lose the stamina they brought to volleyball practice.
The drills four nights a week encourage speed and teamwork, said Denise Adams, head coach.
“If they learn to play together, there’s no reason we can’t go to that state tournament,” she said.
With four sophomores and 11 freshmen, two of whom are sitting out games, the team experiences highs and lows in practice as players prioritize and get used to the pressure of rally scoring.
Assistant coach Ernie Perez-Leon said that high school students have many other things to deal with other than the sport of volleyball. In college, “It’s a job, they either come out and do it or they don’t.”
Both coaches said that the team has a lot of talent individually, but players are learning to work together.
“It’s not so much just a pasttime,” Perez-Leon said about college volleyball.
“They take it a lot more serious and realize that it can lead to a lot of opportunities and open up a lot of doors for them.”
Sophomore Holly Carbajal said that the ratio of sophomores to freshmen doesn’t matter.
“I don’t think it really affects us. I think we all treat each other equally.”
The volleyball team has had two scrimmage tournaments so far this year, neither of which counted. The women also have participated in one tournament in which they won against Cuesta and lost to Delta, leaving their record 1-1.
The team’s first home game will be today at 7 p.m.