VVHS Volleyball Returns To The Court Vs. Faith

By CALLA HAVILAND

The Progress

The Virgin Valley High School Volleyball team got back in their home gym on Friday, March 12 to play its first game of the belated season. It had been a whole year since the last time any Bulldog team was able to play in their home gym due to the COVID pandemic. Both players and coaches were excited to come back and start a real season.

Head varsity coach Lori Barnum said that she wasn’t expecting a season at all. But she was happy to hear the news of having one.

“Coming back to coaching volleyball was a little bit unexpected for me,” Barnum said. “Having a season this year was completely unexpected. We, of course, were all hoping that high school sports would happen but didn’t look like it would actually be a thing. And now here we are.”

On Friday the Bulldogs played Faith Lutheran, a 4A school in Vegas. The Dawgs were put up against some strong competition. They ended up losing the match in three sets: 25-5, 25-7, 25-10.

Sophomore Riley Price led the Dawgs with 4 kills in the match. Kalli Garrett, senior, got 3. Sophomore Evia Toone scored two aces in the match for the Bulldogs. Tyra Ludvigson, a sophomore, got 5 assists with senior Mira Larsen following with 3 assists.

The seniors on the Bulldog team this year are Ashley Quirarte, Kynsli Peterson, Macie Bowler, Kalli Garrett, and Mira Larsen. They were all pleased to actually get to play for their senior year, even if it is a modified schedule against only eight different teams this season.

Senior Kalli Garrett shared how she felt about finally being able to be back on the court in competition.
“I mostly missed the girls and our coaching staff,” Garrett said. “The girls with their chaotic energy and our coaching staff helping us mentally and physically. It’s just a good mixture of people in the gym; and how we can be serious one moment then laughing so hard we fall to the ground. It’s just something you always wanna be around.”

Macie Bowler, another senior, commented, “It feels so awesome to finally be back playing in our high school gym. I didn’t realize how much I missed being in that gym for long hours and sweat dripping down my face.”

Coach Kortney Tobler really summed up how the whole coaching staff and team feels about the season. “I’m definitely disappointed that this season got delayed and shortened,” she said. “I wish more than anything we had gotten to play a regular season back in August. But since that’s not our reality I’m trying to just be grateful for this opportunity that we do have to play.”

Tobler said that the team has suffered a little from not being able to get in the gym to practice for almost a year. “It means that we don’t have as much experience or ball touches as we normally would have,” she said. “But these past two weeks have been really promising and I’m proud of all the hard work our girls are putting in at practice. I know we’ll be successful this season and in the future.”