By Courtney Oldwyn

Journal contributor

Wolverine Volleyball lost a few and won a few these past two weeks with two wins and three losses.

On Tuesday, Sept. 17 the team suffered three losses against South Whidbey High School but came back that weekend to win against Life Christian Academy on Sept. 21, and then won three sets in a row against rival Lopez High School on Wednesday, Sept. 25.

“We struggled in the first two sets against Life Christian, “ said Head Coach Nadine Varsovia “But made an awesome comeback by winning three straight sets after that.” To Varsovia, this game helped her team realize the importance of being mentally focused on their goal: to execute plays.

“The girls have made massive amounts of progress on executing true volleyball plays and are playing with desperation and a sense of urgency,” she said. Varsovia believes the teams wins and losses are due to mental toughness which she defines as “looking in the face of an error or a losing scoreboard and having the will to push through and play the game.”

“Getting stuck in a rut of losing three points … and then moving into a mentality that we have already lost is what makes us lose,” she said. “We are always working on improving this as well as figuring out how to send the ball back over in different ways just to get us out of that rut.”

Their next home game is Thursday, Oct. 3 against Darrington.

On Sept. 28, the team participated in a tournament at South Whidbey High School against eight other teams, most from much larger schools. “We faced a lot of larger schools…,” said Varsovia “Although we didn’t walk out with any wins, we played up to the other schools’ speeds and stood our ground.”

The team was able to take away a lot of new experience, especially playing at higher speed and new ways to change up their offense in order to match their competition. The Lady Wolverines will put their new skills and experience to the test in upcoming matches against Mount Vernon Christian and Darrington.