In every sport, in every season, teams will see a lot of highs and lows....exciting wins, tough losses, injuries and now... quarantines. The Alliance Girls volleyball team, saw all of that in 2020, but managed to play through the challenges and have a successful season.
The Bulldogs wraped up their season at a team banquet Thursday night and despite the current situation had a lot to smile about. Reserve Coach Angie Hiemstra began the night talking about the difficulty in playing through quarantines, and got emotional telling how hard it was to tell a player they would have to sit out , due to Covid exposure. But how proud she was that the team kept playing and bonded together, and finished with a 10-3 record. Coach Hiemstra presented the following Reserve Team Awards. Which were voted on by the team.
Reserve Most Improved: Regan Braun
Reserve Most Inspirational: Kinley Pfeiffer
Reserve Most Valuable: Haylie Winter
Junior Varsity Coach Heather Jensen also talked about dealing with quarantines and not knowing from match to match who would be available, but were able to post an 8-6 record and win a JV tournament championship. Coach Jensen presented the following Junior Varsity awards.
JV Most Improved: Peyton Kindred, Addiysn Muhr
JV Most Inspirational: Haley Weare
JV Most Valuable: Emma Wood
Head Coach Jessica Kaiser finished the evening thanking the 2 seniors on this years team....Billi Alvarado and Kelsey Horton, for their commitment, leadership, encourgement and for putting the team first. Coach Kaiser also talked about the challenges this year . She said of the 19 players on the team, 12 at one time or another were in quarantine and several matches late in the year were cancelled, but the Bulldogs finished 11-16 and played some very exciting volleyball. Senior Billi Alvarado set a new school record for career assists with 1346 and the team was competitive in each match. Coach Kaiser presented the following Varsity Awards...also voted on by the entire team.
Varsity Team Commitment Award: Kelsey Horton
Senior Award: Billi Alvarado
Varsity Most Improved: Kenna Montes
Varsity Most Imspirational: Ava Steggall
Varsity Offensive MVP: Jaelynne Clarke
Varsity Defensive MVP: Amauri Browning
NCPA Academic All State: Kelsey Horton, Shelbee Burke
Team Captains: Billi Alvarado, Ava Steggall
Western Conference All Conference: Amauri Browning, Jaelynne Clarke
Honorable Mention: Kenna Montes, Ava Steggall