Girls Volleyball is a year removed from having their most successful season in school history. According to Coach Sherman Chung, this team is currently on a mission to prove that they can finish another postseason run with a state championship. That mission begins on Aug. 31 2023, when the Trojans play the Clover Hill Cavaliers as they search for a victory in their home opener.
The Trojans championship journey starts with heavy expectations set on their shoulders after going 26-0 in 2022. However, the Trojans did lose three graduating captains for last year in Tatum Evans, Reagan McAdams, and Halle Phelps. When you accompany that with five other seniors departing from last year’s team, roster construction seems to be an important question to ask heading into the fall season. Coach Chung spoke about this new iteration of the Trojans heading into the fall in comparison to their championship team in 2022.
“The team is returning with seven upperclassman athletes and multiple underclassmen that performed excellently with the Junior Varsity team,” Coach Chung said. “There’s clearly a difference from our roster this year in comparison to last year;however, this team from top to bottom is continuing to get better as we get closer to the first game of the year.”
Midlothian will primarily depend on the greatness of Hannah Ball and Alex Mazulewicz for the duration of this season. According to Coach Chung, these senior athletes have sustained a level of excellence and impact on this unit since their last undefeated season in 2020. In addition to that, if it wasn’t for Hannah Ball’s “championship clinching moment” towards the concluding stages of their game against the Patriots, the Trojans could have found themselves losing that match.
“There’s a laundry list of positive things I can say about Hannah and Alex,” Coach Chung said. “I can talk about how Hannah concluded her memorable Junior year with a game defining hit on the outside towards the end of the championship game. I can address how Alex has been one of the best setters that I’ve coached over the past 13 years. Ultimately, these two seniors have set the groundwork for years now and are prepared to lead these group of girls to higher heights in their last year.”
This’ll be the first of two meetings between these two teams in the regular season. Midlothian finished 2-0 in the season series against Clover Hill last year; winning 3 sets to 1 in their first game at Clover Hill while dominating the Cavaliers at home 3-0 in their second game. According to the Trojan coaching staff, the team is going to have a drastically different gameplan in comparison to last year because of Clover Hill’s roster changing from last year.
“In our two games against Clover Hill last year, we did a fantastic job in terms of controlling the game in the middle of our box,” Coach Chung said. “Controlling the box with our setters is going to be a huge component in this contest on Thursday.”
“We are coming into this game expecting to dominate the Cavaliers in set 3 and set 4 like we did last season,” Assistant Coach Whitney Disfrischia said. “The Cavaliers have constructed a new roster with valuable additions just like we did heading into this season. We’ll be ready for different kinds of gameplan that Clover Hill will throw our way in our home opener.
