MHS volleyball team looking to build confidence

Julia Jefferson is encouraged that her Maricopa volleyball team is showing the ability to compete with its rugged opponents from the Class 4A-II East Sky Region.

The next step, the MHS first-year head coach said following Tuesday’s 25-16, 25-16, 25-12 loss to visiting Phoenix Arcadia, is for the Rams to gain the confidence necessary to turn hard-fought setbacks into program-building wins.

“It’s a tough mentality, toughness of the mind, just being mentally tough and believing,” Jefferson said. “The biggest thing now that we have to do with these girls is they have to believe. They have to believe.”

The Rams (1-5, 0-4 East Sky) hung tough in all three games against Arcadia (4-1, 3-0), but the Titans converted the key points late in each contest.

“What I’m seeing right now with these girls, it’s like a shock of, ‘Oh, we can do this. Oh, wow, I’m competing. I’m right there with them,’” Jefferson said. “And that’s what we were talking about near the end is confidence, believing in themselves. Other schools are believing in us now because they see the improvement. I believe in them. So it just comes down to the girls actually individually believing in themselves.”

In the first game, the Rams closed an 18-10 deficit to 18-14, only to see Arcadia answer with five consecutive points to pull ahead 23-14 on the way to a 25-16 victory.

Maricopa led 7-3 in Game 2 and was still in front at 12-11, but Arcadia scored seven of the next eight points to grab an 18-13 advantage. After a kill by junior Cori Teller brought the Rams to within 20-16, the Titans reeled off the final five points to win 25-16.

The third game was a similar story, as sophomore middle hitter Izzy Miller led the Titans on a 13-1 scoring run that turned a 10-10 tie into a 23-11 Arcadia lead. During the sequence, Arcadia tallied seven straight points to pull ahead 17-10. After Maricopa scored to break the streak, the Titans responded with a spike by Miller to make it 18-11. Five points later, Miller contributed another kill to increase Arcadia’s advantage to 23-11.

The Titans closed out the 25-12 win – and their 3-0 victory in the match – with a serving ace by junior Kristen Todd.

“The fact that they actually were playing and competing with this team that they’d always felt was at a higher level and hanging in there with them, you get to a point where sometimes they didn’t know what to do,” Jefferson said. “So it’s the next step of the game.”

Junior outside hitter Julia Dickerson finished with six kills, two blocks and two digs for the Rams, who also got three kills from junior Paige Provost and three digs from senior Beth Liddell.

Maricopa junior Madalina Cutajar had 17 digs from her libero position, while junior Chyenne Anderson contributed 12 assists.

While the Rams stand at 1-5 in matches that count in the AIA Power Rankings, they gained additional experience by competing in last weekend’s Florence Tournament, winning six matches and losing two to place fifth in the 12-team event.

“It was definitely a good morale booster,” Jefferson said about the two-day tournament in Florence, where the Rams played several of their former Class 3A rivals including Florence, Coolidge, Globe and Tucson Empire. “The girls got to really see that they’ve improved. Every team that we’ve played against, for the most part, their coaches have complimented us on how much our program has improved, that it’s competition now when they play us.”

After having the rest of this week off, the Rams will play three matches in three nights next week, beginning with a Tuesday contest at Scottsdale Notre Dame. Maricopa then will take the court at home against Gilbert Williams Field on Sept. 22 and will travel to Chandler Seton Catholic to play the defending Class 4A-II state champion Sentinels on Sept. 23.

“I’ve already seen huge changes, huge improvement,” Jefferson said about her Maricopa team. “It just comes down to now the girls have to believe in themselves. Once they do that, it’s going to be like a switch is flipped; the light bulb goes on.”

Photo by Tom Kessler