After a successful season last year, York’s Girls Varsity Volleyball team looks forward to dominating once again. Only a quarter of the way in and the girls are already off to a great start, being 6-1. This leaves their coach, Daniel Piwowarczyk, excited to uphold the team’s stellar reputation this year.

“We had eleven players coming back from the playoff roster, eight of them being Seniors,” Piwowarczyk said. “We’ve stuck with the same systems; a couple of people are in bigger roles as seniors.”

The girls are already off to a great start. Not only has the team seen a lot of success over the first seven games, they also had a lot of fun playing against the competition.

“The cross-town rivalry games are always fun. We start off the season with [Immaculate Conception] – we beat IC, which is fun,” Piwowarczyk said. “We just had our first tournament, and we took third out of twelve and we were missing three players on Saturday. So it’s a pretty good start to the season so far.”

Looking back at last season, the team was more successful than anyone had predicted. The girls were able to win games against many challenging schools, even in conference.

“Last season went really good. We performed well above expectations,” Piwowarczyk said. “We beat Hinsdale Central and Downers Grove North in conference, and I think that might have surprised some outside people and other coaches.”

To continue this success the team puts in a lot of hard work practicing. It will be rewarding to watch this work pay off in the long run.

“This year we have a team of hardworking people that put in a lot of time and effort in practice,” senior Leila Rodriguez said. “It really shows in our games.”

Having a team that can work together is crucial to success on the court. Having many returning team

members help the team already be close-knit, in turn helping them connect while playing.

“Our team really meshes, and we all get along,” Rodriguez said. “It really helps our chemistry on the court when we play.”

The rest of this season acts as the perfect time for growth in the team. The girls are working hard to be able to dominate even more than last year, but also having fun along the way.

“I’m looking forward to continuing developing close friendships with everyone and beating teams we didn’t beat last year,” senior Captain Emelyn Stettin said.