Volleyball is one of the many fall sports that are going on at Alliance High School. This year’s team is comprised of five senior players and one senior manager. The team has had a very successful season so far with a record of 13-3. 

This year is head coach Jessica Kaiser’s seventh year of coaching at AHS. She started as a volunteer coach, and then for her second year was an assistant coach. For the past five years, she has been the head coach. In an interview with Kaiser, she stated that “We have a great group of girls this year. [We have] a lot of experience returning and have gotten off to a great start.  We have great leaders and a lot of talent [in] grades 9-12.  Last year was rough for us due to Covid and the amount of quarantines we had to go through, hopefully, this year we won’t have to deal with that as much.” Although Covid is less of a concern this year, athletes and coaches are aware that nothing is for sure. NSAA has actually released a Covid-19 Return to Play Infographic.

Kaiser also elaborated on her goals as a coach. “As a coach, I just want to show up every day with a positive attitude and positive mindset and work with these girls to make them better, on and off the court. I want to make sure the girls know how much I care about them and how much they are valued, but at the same time want to make sure we have expectations and are a disciplined team.” These high expectations and discipline has been very evident this year, as the girls have already been the champion team of the Douglas and McCook tournaments. 

“We have always been lucky and had great groups of senior leaders.  This year we have six seniors all together with [Teetje Oezen, nicknamed] Ella,  being our foreign exchange student and Leyton Schnell being our manager. Our seniors this year bring a lot of experience with all of them getting a lot of playing time over the years.  They all get along really well and are all here striving to meet the same goals and want to do what it takes to help their team get there,” stated Kaiser. All of the senior players, besides Oezen, have been playing volleyball for AHS since their freshman year. 

The volleyball team has been giving it their all in practice, and this hard work is definitely paying off. The SPUD wishes the team the best of luck throughout the rest of their season and good luck to all fall sports! Go Bulldogs!