The Totino-Grace Volleyball team has had an up and down season thus far but they have still managed to post a 6-8 (.429) record. The motto for this season from head coach Kayla Cole is “one point at a time” and the team thinks that is key to winning a state title, no matter who is on the other side of the net.

Before the season started the Eagles were looking at somewhat of a rebuilding year with only 2 returning starters on their roster. Coach Cole said, “We knew we were very young and inexperienced to start the season.” But, she also argued that since the new players have been playing volleyball for such a long time, they just needed to find chemistry within the group of girls.

Matching up to other teams in the Northwest-Suburban Conference, TG skill-wise from player to player is very similar to the other top teams in the section. “We do have a couple of teams in our conference who are really dominant in a lot of positions, maybe best players in their programs history, so those are games where we want to compete, get better, and see what happens.”

On the topic of the team’s chemistry: “everyone so far has been a great surprise, our captains have really stepped up to lead the team and they both play 6 rotations so they rarely leave the court. We also have a sophomore setter running a 5-1 rotation and that’s a big responsibility for a sophomore. Plus we have two freshman starting who are doing a really nice job in that role.”

Cole has also been happy about the teams play recently. “We’ve played some of our best volleyball in the last couple of weeks. Our team ran a four match winning streak until we lost to league leading Champlin Park. I would say vs. CP is the best game we’ve ever played out of those four matches even though we lost, so I think we are on the right track. Getting 1% better everyday helps us a ton.”

From a coach’s standpoint, Cole has had a great time having so many newcomers to the roster. “It has been really fun because there has been a lot of learning and improved Volleyball IQ’s at a really fast rate”. Since the team has girls from every grade, it creates a unique dynamic on the court that is truly unlike any other team out there.

Coming into the latter half of the season Cole expects “We are going to surprise people that we played early in the season because some of those teams are very senior-heavy so as good as they were in August might be the same result in the postseason since the teams are mostly the same. We also know what we are capable of and how much we have grown as a unit this year.”

The teams success is a result of being good learners and to keep the process as the goal, not the outcome. Keep supporting the TG Volleyball team as the postseason draws near!