As the fall sports season comes to a close, many teams and coaches are reflecting on what went right and what went wrong.

For the varsity Girls’ Volleyball team, it has been celebrating what went right as it finished the season with a 13-9 record and a trip to the states.

“I have never been more proud of myself and even more my team,” said senior captain Naia Isabelle. “Of all my years playing volleyball I have never experienced a team with so much passion. That’s what really made this season a strong one.”

Senior Anna Port added, “We’ve play with a lot of the same people over the years, and this year has been our best by far.”

The team made it to the second round of the states, and bowed out of the competition after being defeated by Amity. Still, the team found the positives.

 “We were ecstatic to make states in the first place,” Port said. “Last year we had more of a rough season; there was not enough communication going on. But this year we really improved.”

Communication seems to be key for this team. When asked to reflect on improvements the team has made this past year, Isabelle brings up the teams communicating skills.

“At first none of us really communicated well, but we all realized we needed to improve our games drastically,” Isabelle said. “And you instantly could see a change in attitude and in our games when we did communicate.”

Senior Zoe Coleman agrees, saying “the game changer was when we started communicating.

In addition to the improvement in communicating on the court, team members credit their success to Coach John MacMillan.

“Coach Mac is awesome,” Coleman said. “I love him to pieces. He was really good at being positive but also honest. If we ever had a bad game we would tell us to pick it up. But then he won’t dwell on it. With him it was always about fixing your mistakes and never giving up”.

Port said she appreciates MacMillan’s approach.

“He definitely has a different way of going about things,” said Port, noting his use of sarcasm to motivate. “He uses this sense of humor to drive you into being a better player.”

MacMillan views his team as “unselfish.” He made it clear that this team was built on teamwork, not individuals.

“Every player understood that we needed to work as a team to be successful and check our egos at the door,” he said.

He agrees with his players that communication was key to this winning season.

“They had the ability to look forward toward the next play, set or match and consistently try their hardest win,” he said.

The coach said at the beginning of the season he was a little unsure of the team.

“But as the year went on I began to expect that our team was going to work hard, get better each practice and compete with every team that it faced,” MacMillan said.