Joshua Weisbly
ASU Student Journalist

Arcadia Titans girls volleyball ready for season

September 10, 2019 by Joshua Weisbly, Arizona State University


Arcadia practices for an upcoming game. (Photo credit: Joshua Weisbly/AZPreps365)

Joshua Weisbly is a student journalist at the Walter Cronkite school at Arizona State University assigned to cover Arcadia High School volleyball. 

With the volleyball season underway, the Arcadia Titans look to improve on their record from last year as they mix in some new players. This year though, with improved chemistry and a large number of returning players, the season looks bright for the Titans.

The Titans have played one game so far this year, after having their game against Coconino canceled and dropping the season opener to Chaparral, losing 3-0. The next matchup for Arcadia is against the Cactus on Sep. 10, 2019, where they hope to secure a victory at home.

After finishing the previous year with a 9-8 record, Arcadia sees hope with the team having a number of key returners this year including eight seniors on their roster. This includes Grace Eubanks and Zoria Carrier. Both are team captains and have been a part of the varsity team at Arcadia since they were sophomores. The two seniors look to lead their team to an impressive season this year. 

“Last year we had a lot of new people coming into our team, a lot of people that had never been on the varsity level before so that kind of took some getting used to,” Eubanks said.

Regardless of the new players, the team put in a lot of work over the past season and the offseason to continue to improve skills and chemistry. 

“This year, from the summer, we were able to be like 'We know who we are and how we play and it just turned into what can we do to get better,'” Carrier said.

Being a captain on any sports team is a big role to take on, and volleyball is no different. The role of a captain is to be a leader for a team and be able to improve the team overall. The captains were asked about the goals they wanted to set for the team the season and how they want to help the team.

“I definitely as a captain want to step up and make everyone feel comfortable and feel like they can be uncomfortable in practice and not be judged and feel weird. I really want us to go far this season, so ill do whatever it takes to get there,” Carrier said.

The two captains share similar goals. 

“My goal, I guess, would just be obviously as a captain you kinda wanna step up and be that leader for your team,” Eubanks said. “I just wanna help everyone else do the best, 'cause I know we have the talent. It's just how do we get there?”

The team is committed to the goal of being able to help improve each other this season. This goal is also shared by the team's head coach, Jackie Bunker, who is with the team for her fourth season.  Bunker wants to improve on the record from the previous season and is set on achieving that by making her players better in all aspects of the game.

“We’re trying to speed up our offense. That was one thing that we’ve been working on, and then we’ve been forcing everyone to kinda play out of their comfort zone a little bit,” Bunker said. 

Bunker also has an end of the year goal for her players: Not only does she want them to be competitive, but also to have a memorable time doing it and make that push for the playoffs.

“The big thing that we keep talking about is the balance between staying really focused and playing at a high level but still having fun," Bunker said. “Hopefully, if we continue to do our best and have fun, then we have success and have the ability to go past that first round of state, which has really been a big goal for us.”