The Westside volleyball team has an exciting season ahead of them. After an amazing finish last year in the semifinals of the state tournament, the team is ready for more. The team finished last year with a winning record of 26-11, but still see room for improvement.
This will be head coach Andrew Wehrli’s second year leading the team. His ultimate goal is for the team to win a state championship. A state championship for volleyball would be the first one in Westside’s history. He believes they have a strong group and can achieve this goal.
“We have five awesome seniors and a team full of leaders,” Wehrli said. “Everyone in our program works hard and is competing to improve every day.”
The team seems to agree about the strong leadership this year. Even though they lost four seniors last year, the team is very bonded. Sophomore setter Kherington Snider, is excited about the strong team friendship this season.
“Our team this year is really a group of best friends who get to play a sport they love with each other,” Snider said.
These girls don’t let their close friendships distract them from getting their work in at practice though. The team practices daily and are trying to put 100% in every time. Wehrli is aiming to make the team “mentally tough” this year.
“Practices are intense. They are intentionally difficult,” Wehrli said. “We’re pushing the limits of failure physically and mentally everyday.”
One of the seniors this year is Ashlyn Paymal. She was just named one of the Omaha World-Herald’s super six, meaning she is one of the top players in Nebraska. Paymal is a right hitter for the team. She believes they have great team culture this year.
“We are all valued equally whether you are from the district, or a transfer, or whether you play or not. No matter the level you play at (freshman, reserve, jv, varsity) you are a part of our program and matter, ” Paymal said.
The team is looking for many small ways to improve this year so that they can make it just a bit farther to that state championship game. It is obvious that they are working extremely hard to improve everyday, but Wehrli is also trying some other tactics overall to see small improvements.
“We are changing some of our offensive strategies to create better mismatches this season,” Wehrli said.
The players are focused on new things this season as well. They are preparing for the year in many different ways, on and off the court. They hope that all their team bonding will help them play better together during the season.
“We’ve been putting extra focus towards making our team feel like a family. We go into the gym everyday and try to get at least 1% better so we are on our A game when state rolls around,” Snider said.
Another one of their new main strategies is to focus on the things they can control. The team calls these things the intangibles.
“We are focusing on mental toughness, trust amongst the players, and conditioning to prepare for our season,” Paymal said. “Skill is important but we are putting an extra focus on the intangibles.”
It is hard to fit all this amazing talent onto one team. Wehrli is trying his best to use all the players to the team’s advantage, while also balancing things like playing time for each person.
“We’ve adopted an everyone wins together mentality,” Wehrli said. “It doesn’t matter who gets the job done, it’s about getting the job done.”
The team hopes that all this work will pay off for them in the long run. They have big goals and know what it will take to reach them.
“I am very excited for this upcoming season. I am looking forward to achieving our goals and watching everyone’s hard work this pre-season pay off,” Snider said.
Wehrli is confident that with this talented group of girls they can reach the stars they are shooting for.
“It’s gonna be a great year for Westside volleyball,” Wehrli said.
The volleyball team will have their first match Thursday Aug.22 in the Elkhorn North Triangular. They will go head-to-head with the Papillion La Vista South Titans and the Elkhorn North Wolves.
