The Spartan volleyball season is set to begin soon, along with this season comes a fair share of excitement. This team is experienced, as it is almost wholely made up of juniors, and seniors, East will hope to utilize this upperclassmen leadership this season. “I feel like through this summer we’ve had great leadership, in the weight room, and camps we’ve had great attendance, so I think that’s going to pay off down the road, and so far it has bled into the season. We now have a leadership council, where we choose four players, and they help make a lot of the decisions for our team, and our program.” Head coach Mike Weise mentioned about senior leadership. 

The Spartans come into this season as a relatively short team with few players over 6 foot, but the Spartans aren’t stressing as they feel they hold some advantages over the rest of the competition. “We are much improved from a defensive standpoint, escpecially in class A where everything is so fast, keeping the ball in play you’ll have a chance to win.” Wiese stated about how he’ll attack competition coming into the season. 

As for Grand Island, they want to be aggressive and keep the focus on the defensive side of the court. “We don’t know a lot about them, and they don’t know a lot about us right now, but we want to come in and play aggressively.” Early in the year it’s difficult to know what to expect in the opening weeks, and the same rules apply to East, but they will come out and play to the best of their ability. 

East wants to come out of the gates firing on all cylinders, while keeping composure and playing intelligently. While lacking in the department of height, this does not influence a sense of discouragement, as the Spartan team feels like they have a defensive edge over the majority of opponents. In the middle of the Class A pack, East will look to open the season with a win, as they’ll face Grand Island on Thursday, August 29th.