A week after its strong third-place finish at the Archbishop Mitty Volleyball Invitational, the Mitty girls volleyball team is looking to build on its success at the Los Gatos Wildcat Invitational Tournament this weekend.
“We’re looking to keep our momentum going into this tournament,” said senior outside hitter Katie Conroy, “We want to build off our hard work in practice and our success so far.”
Coming into the tournament, the Monarchs are an excellent 11-3 overall. Their only losses came against Presentation, El Camino, and St. Francis. The most recent loss - to St. Francis - came at the semifinals of the aforementioned Archbishop Mitty Invitational, but the Monarchs recovered to defeat Santa Barbara to capture third place.
Mitty opened its tournament with two excellent victories against St. Francis of Sacramento and Cardinal Gibbons (Raleigh, NC). The Monarchs moved on to face the league rival Lancers in the semifinals, with the winner advancing to the tournament’s final.
Though Mitty played extremely well against St. Francis, the Lancers’ defense was just too much for Mitty’s attack. St. Francis was able to repel most of Mitty offensive attempts, wearing down the Monarchs and eventually winning 3-0.
Mitty recouped quite well from that loss, however in the third-place match against Santa Barbara. The offense, perhaps seething from the poor performance against St. Francis, unleashed a withering storm upon the Dons, led by 14 kills by Alexandra Caldwell along with strong performances from Katie Conroy and setter Allie Wheeler, a combination that proved too much for Santa Barbara. The Monarchs dispatched the Dons 3-0, taking third place in the tournament.
According to Conroy, it’s the friendship among teammates that allows the Monarchs to play so well.
“Our team succeed succeeds because we all have such good chemistry both on and off the court,” she says, “We work really hard as a team and have a lot of fun doing it.”
This sentiment is echoed by many of Conroy’s teammates, who cite the team’s chemistry as one of the key reasons for Mitty’s success so far. The team’s closeness creates positive energy during games, allowing the Monarchs to be resilient in times of difficulty and to work together to achieve success.
Moving on to the task at hand, the Monarchs certainly want to add to their record of success and win the Los Gatos tournament. They’ve prepared hard for the tournament in practice all week. The team will have a special motivation for winning as well.
“We want to use the [Wildcat Invitational] as a springboard to further success,” said junior libero Anne Marie Schmidt, “Doing well in the tournament will give us momentum to do well in our first league game next week.”
If the team continues to play like it has so far, achieving success in the future looks to be a task well within reach.
