With a remarkable season of just one loss last year, the girls beach volleyball team is continuing their strong play this season. They currently have an overall score of 10-1, with a loss against New Smyrna Beach, the top ranked team in the nation, year’s state champion and the only team that has beaten the girls this season and last season. Fifteen times this season, New Smyrna has shut out their opponent, 5-0.

“We wanted to schedule New Smyrna, who we lost to in the Final Four last year,” coach Juanita Hitt said. “We wanted to schedule them early just to see where we were at and the overall score didn’t give us justice. We didn’t have a key player in one of our top teams, and we still did well.”

New Smyrna is a strong force in the nation for beach volleyball teams, having zero losses for this season and only one game where the opponent won a single match. However, the team is confident in their ability to improve into an equal strength competitor.

“I think we are very good at supporting each other, whether we are winning or losing,” freshman Avery Stephens said. “It helps us push through knowing that our partner or the rest of our team is there.”

After the loss, there have only been wins for the girls. At the game against Montverde Academy, the girls had a rough start but was able to gain back the lead. 

“You don’t want to have negative thoughts because if you do, it’s just going to go downhill from there. Keeping it positive with your partner and just communicating [with the team] really helps. I feel like that’s how we pull through for every game and it really helps us win,” freshman Ally Leach said.

That positive attitude paid off as they ended the second period 2-1. They finished the next three matches 2-0, ending the game 4-1. The five games after this have been a streak of 5-0 wins.

“We have very talented kids, and we’re very young. We don’t have any seniors on our team right now; it’s mainly made up of freshmen, a few sophomores, and a few juniors,” Hitt said.

They faced some challenges when they played against Venice High School in a close game. They started smoothly with wins for the first two matches. However, the third and forth games were lost, leaving the final match to be the deciding factor of the game. With a lack of players, they still managed to win the final round and end with a score of 3-2.

“We were missing a few key players, so I was hoping that everybody could just rise to the occasion and do well, which I had all faith and confidence they’d do a great job,” Hitt said.