The University Prep girls volleyball teams have reached record breaking numbers this year. According to Director of Athletics Rebecca Moe, there are a total of 30 students across varsity, JV and JVC, 15 of them being freshman. 

“This is my 21st year working with UPrep, and I’ve been in athletics the whole time. This is the first year we have had three teams,” Moe said.

This record-breaking turnout for the girls’ volleyball team, though amazing news for the teams, could have caused some issues. 

With this being the first year UPrep has had a JVC team for volleyball in a while, one challenge  could have been finding teams to play with UPrep’s JVC team.         

“It wasn’t hard to find games. Most teams in our league have JVC volleyball teams. We play SAAS, Overlake, Northwest and Bear Creek, so it was easy to get a schedule. We got help from other schools in finding coaches and setting up schedules as well,” Moe said.

The other potential conflict was, due to the increase in students joining volleyball, students could be pulled from other sports and make other teams smaller. 

“Soccer has a smaller JV team and so does cross country, but I don’t think any of the girls who are playing volleyball necessarily left any of those sports to play volleyball,” Moe said. 

Junior and varsity volleyball player Jane Morgan has observed the increase in team participation and appreciates the increased motivation and determination of the team.

“When I was a freshman, there was barely a JV team,” Morgan said.

In the last three years, Morgan has only seen improvement in UPrep’s varsity volleyball team. 

“As the years have gone on, it has been exciting to see how each year the teams have changed and to see how much better they get each year.” Morgan said.  

The varsity team is doing well in the league right now. Currently rank 16 in the state, the varsity team has been pushing to work their hardest in every practice and game to maintain their near perfect record.

Annabel Wickman is a freshman on the varsity team. 

“I joined the team because volleyball has always been one of my favorite sports and being new at the school, it is always fun to be able to connect with people through sports,” she said. 

Wickman hasn’t played volleyball at Uprep before and since this was her first time she was a little nervous at first.

“I was nervous about being on varsity my first year but all my teammates are really helpful and supportive,” Wickman said.

All of the teams are excited for the rest of the season to come and are hopeful for a turnout like this one in future years.