Starting their season off with an overall record of 6-8, the GBS women’s volleyball team is focused on finding team chemistry and confidence on the court, according to head coach Katie Hoover.

Although there are many competitive teams in the area, the team hopes to continue to practice their developing skills and stay with the competition, according to senior captain Carly Weinman. Hoover agrees that the girls are working hard in practice and have already reached some of their goals.

“We have already improved in the area of preparedness,” Hoover said. “When we take the floor, we are more mentally and physically ready to play.”

At the same time, Hoover expresses that the team still needs to work on improving their court communication by identifying their opponents’ primary attackers, and hopes to continue to become more consistent with the logistics of the game.

Among many of the goals the girls have set for themselves, the primary one for Weinman is to win conference. Senior captain Amanda Thoelecke strives for the same objective with a way to get the team more actively involved with the game.

“We want to keep our heads up when we lose first games,” Thoelecke said. “We want to pump it up and keep the momentum going and not get our heads down for the second game.”

The girls played in the New Trier tournament the weekend of Sept. 7th and placed 6th overall. According to Hoover, this was a memorable moment in the season because it showed just how athletic and committed to being competitive the players are.

“At this tournament, our best attacker, Izzy Rapacz intimidated our opponents by hitting several well-timed attacks straight to floor,” Hoover said. “As soon as we improve our blocking, serving and setting technique in order to avoid errors, we will have much more success on paper.”

Off the court, the girls are also striving for success in the community. They have all participated in a service project where they visited the Libertyville Feed My Starving Children Packing Plant. They worked for two hours to pack enough meals to feed 81 impoverished children for a year, according to Hoover.

In addition to packaging, they raised $3000 in pledges for our serve-a-thon to support the FMSC mission.

“It was inspiring for the coaches to see everyone work together on site and raise so much support,” Hoover said.

While Hoover is hard at work with the girls on and off the court, she is expecting a maternity leave soon, and her spot is to be filled by assistant varsity coach Theodorakakos.

“Coach T is going to step up along with Coach Monahan,” Weinman said. “Were all going to be helping each other get through it while she isn’t here.”

According to Hoover, the team has experienced seniors to fall back on as well.

“We have strong senior leaders who motivate and challenge the team so that we can compete with the best programs in our area,” Hoover said.