This year’s volleyball team has jumped into action this season. With the season comes new coach Melissa Murillo. Coach Murillo has been coaching for three years and has decided on taking on the role of coaching Ridgeviews volleyball team. “I had a couple friends that actually work here and they’re security guards and also coaches in football and they told me that they were looking for a varsity coach and that was something that I really wanted to get into to so I came and applied”. Their most recent game went as a success, winning their game against West High School 3-2. Although it doesn’t stop there.
Senior middle, Ava Torrez and Junior setter, Gabriela Garcia have hopes and goals of creating bonds and memories with this season’s new team as well as gaining a few more wins under their belts. “ I’m looking forward to just a positive season with the girls’, you know have great energy and hopefully you know we take out some wins then just overall good season”, states Garcia. Both Torrez and Garcia were inspired in similar ways to begin their venture into the sport. Watching older girls’ play when they were younger made them realize this was the sport they wanted to pursue. “ I watched my sister play growing up, she used to play in highschool and I just wanted to play too,” says Torrez. Both players look up to family members to find the inspiration they need to keep themselves moving forward.
The team’s biggest hopes of improvement this year is to target both their skills and mentality to better themselves in future games. “ What I want to work on the most this season is having a stronger connection with the girls’ I say, I feel like we have our own cliques, but as a team we all got to work together, so I just think work together as a team”, states Garcia. Last year’s volleyball team was not everything that returning players from this year had hoped for, which adds much more excitement for these girls this year to fix those errors from last season and come back stronger and better. With the new season has also come new players who are looking forward to playing at the next level and learning all that they possibly can. Garcia implies, “ Don’t give up, keep going, that even if you feel like you mess up and that your not going to make the team, I’m telling you right now that if you get out of that mindset and you just keep going forward and keep pushing and you put in the work there will be a positive outcome and you just keep trying even if you don’t make it still practice and keep going and it’s not over you still got time.”
Not only do both Torrez and Garcia have similar reasons for joining volleyball in the first place, but they also have similar motivations to drive themselves to become better in the sport. Coach Murillo states, “My goal for this team is to be able to be one team, not separated groups, friendships, I want us to be all one together, working hard together. Mentality in this game plays a major role for these girls’, so it is very important that they look for ways to continue keeping that determination, dedication and persistence to play this game.
