By Travis Smola
The Lady Bulldogs volleyball team finished the season with a 28-18-6 record, a district title and made it to the regional finals against Buchanan.
Unfortunately, Buchanan’s size and experience was too much for a Vicksburg team that found itself in uncharted waters. “They’ve been here before and we haven’t,” Head Coach Katrina Miller said after the girls fell in three straight sets.
It wasn’t the finish they had hoped for, but the team could just be building towards bigger and better things. The Lady Bulldogs played a much tougher schedule this year than the last and some of their best games came late in the season.
Next year’s squad will have a slightly different makeup with the loss of seven seniors in Kellie Goole, Carlie Kudary, Kendal Hall, Shaidan Knapp, Ashton Bjork, Grace Welch and Amy Kosiba. But the Lady Bulldogs will return key players like star libero Morgan Preston and junior setter Anna Schriemer and outside hitter Lindsey Miller for one more season.
This year was marked by unforgettable come-from-behind victories like that against Plainwell in the semi-final round. It was in the game’s second set that the Lady Bulldogs came back from a 24-20 Plainwell match point to win the game.
While the loss to Buchanan was a tough way for the season to end, Miller thinks it may just help fuel some of the young players like freshman Marley Ferguson, Camille Wadley and sophomores Grace Wile, Kaytee Harvey and Viviane Edwards.
“I’ve never had a team play this well together,” Miller said after the Plainwell match. With tears in her eyes after the regional round loss, she noted how there was no disconnect between the players regardless of class year. “They respect each other. It’s genuine,” she said.