Perfection is tough to come by.
But for the girls volleyball team at crater high school, that’s exactly what they hoped for coming into the season.
“The the 36-0 is good, that’s quite an achievement in it of itself,” Crater girls volleyball head coach Leaf Jensen said. “We are far from perfect as my girls will frequently tell you.”
Jensen came back for a third stint at Crater starting this year.
This season, they have a record of 18-4 .
In Midwestern Conference play they went 12-0 and never lost a set in any of those games.
A feat he’s never seen before.
“Not in our conference before and all my years of doing it,” he said. “This is our third title, we’ve won on teams that’s I‘ve coached and we’ve been pushed every one of those seasons. We’ve never had a season where we haven’t dropped a set.”
However, what’s even more impressive is how the team is doing it without their home gym.
The gym is getting a major make over at Crater High, forcing the team to move and play their games at Scenic Middle School.
“It’s definitely odd because the gym is a lot smaller than what we are used to at Crater, not as many people can come, it’s just kind of mushed,” Senior Madison Stidham said. “It’s not exactly the best, but it is what it is and I still get to play with my teammates.”
While there are several special players on the team, three seniors Kate Stidham, Madison Kocina and Kendra Bittle have stuck together as teammates since 6th grade.
Making for an unbreakable bond.
“They’re my best friends on and off the court and we’ve grown and developed together and we’re just good,” Kocina said.
Something that separates this team from others is their size.
And they’re hoping to use that to their advantage to win a state championship.
“Teams definitely see us and get a little intimidated and like I said, we have a very big offense, most of our players, even some of our defenders are pretty tall, so I definitely think we look intimidating when people see us walk into the gym,” Bittle said.
If you want to catch the team’s first playoff game, it’s Saturday at 4 p.m. against the Dallas Dragons at Scenic Middle School.
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