New coach, new core

This year the community is excited about welcoming the new volleyball coach, Rob Zajdel.

He first was interested in playing volleyball back in high school with his brother and together, they played sand volleyball. After high school, he attended Purdue University and played for the men’s volleyball team as a Defensive Specialist. He was playing at an Olympic level. 

Coach Zajdel was hired during the last week of the 2022 school year, which was not much time for him to get to know the girls and the school. Gaining trust and learning the girls’ strengths and weaknesses were his very first priority during the summer. He learned that they are a defensive-minded group which is such a good thing to want for a team.

“I truly believe our varsity team can be a big surprise to other teams this year,” said Zajdel.

Adding two new tournaments, one at Lafayette Jeff and the other at Clinton Prairie, while being added into a new sectional bracket, the varsity team will be challenged this season. The girls are ready for anything this year. 

The  JV team is a solid group this year and is prepared for lots of development over the season. The freshman players have great role models they look up to. 

Running middle attack with seniors Sydney Warran and Nora Brock along with sophomore Hailey Dunn as much as they can, they can be unstoppable. If middle attacks aren’t working well, they know they can rely on their outside hitters. 

In volleyball, you always start the game strong with passes before attacking in the front row. This varsity team has a strong defensive output led by their libero, Avery Littrell, along with other outstanding sophomore defenders, Izzie Farmer and Sofia Eaton.

According toWarran, “I think we will have a lot of success this year. I believe we have all the parts needed to win.” 

Zajdel is excited because he believes the season will be very successful.

“When I looked at this team, I saw a lot of promise,” he said.

Everyone about this season. It looks like a lot of wins are in the future for the Cadets.