Learning resilience, GSA volleyball looks ahead to next year

By Gilbert Rieff

BLUE HILL - The JV volleyball team from George Stevens Academy faced off against the varsity team of Lee Academy in their last game of the season on Oct. 17. The Eagles may have been beaten by Lee Academy’s more seasoned players, GSA still played well and had an overall good game. There was a lot of good passing, good saves, and good team spirit.

“It was a little bit sad [not winning], but I think it was an encouraging way to end the season, and it gave us a lot to look forward to next year,” said Story Blodgett, a freshman team member who sat down with The Rising Tide for a post-game interview:

How did you feel about the varsity team playing against the JV team?

“It was a little bit annoying, but I can understand why it happened, just because there aren't a ton of big schools around that play volleyball. It was annoying because we were playing out of our league against a much stronger, more experienced team.”

What did you think about the season overall?

“I really enjoyed the season, and I think everyone else who played did as well. None of us had played volleyball previously, so it was a relatively new experience for all of us. So, no one was, like, extremely better than anyone else. We were all on pretty even footing, which was nice. And it wasn't super competitive. I mean, we want a little bit of competitiveness in sports, but we were all very supportive of each other.”

How do you feel that you’ve improved from your first to your last game?

“There was definitely improvement. Again, since none of us had played, we pretty much all had no clue what we were doing to start with. So, it was a lot of kind of fumbling and trying to figure out what worked and what didn't. But the improvement was that most of us couldn't even make it over the net in our first game, serving or otherwise, and now we are an almost fully functional team.

“We still have little mishaps here and there, but we did improve by a lot, just in our overall attitude, because we used to get very, very down during the middle of games, cause, you know, sometimes when you start losing, it does get a little bit sad. But the whole point of volleyball is that you just got to move on and do better the next time. I've gotten a lot better at doing that.”

—Rieff, a 14-year-old freshman at GSA, covers sports for The Rising Tide.