Fabian Valdez is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Millennium for AZPreps365.com

Millennium’s girls volleyball team has gone through a stretch of recent dominance, making it to the last two 5A State Championship games and currently looks to return for the third straight season. 

The Tigers (13-1 overall, 8-0 conference) have established themselves as one of the premiere teams in Arizona volleyball, reaching the title game for the second year in a row last season. Despite an overwhelming amount of new players, Millennium still believes it has a great shot at returning to the big stage for the third year in a row.

Senior Jordan Miller, the longest active player and consensus leader of the Tigers, believes this year's team can go just as far as previous teams.The 5A AIA State Girls Volleyball tournament begins Saturday where Millennium, seeded fourth, plays No. 13 seed Desert Mountain on the Tigers’ home court.

“I think we can make it all the way, I think we really have a strong shot,” Miller said. “I really think we can take it all.” 

Miller, who currently has 123 kills in 35 sets, admits to feeling the pressure of bringing Millennium another title following the Tiger’s heartbreaking loss to Sunnyslope in last year's championship game. 

“I definitely have always put the pressure on myself but that's the most exciting part to me, is fueling that,” Miller said, “There’s a lot of pressure but I can handle it.”

Entering her seventh season as Millennium’s coach, Julie Vastine faces a new challenge this year as a large portion of the team is new to the roster. Despite present challenges, the Tigers started the season strong with only one loss in 14 games, a record the players attribute to Vastine’s style of coaching. 

“She is such a calm coach, even when we were losing in the state finals last year she had a smile on her face,” Miller said.

“She also lets us manage our own problems, she doesn’t necessarily call timeouts right away when something goes wrong, she wants us to figure it out on our own which is really helpful.”

Freshman middle blocker Rosa Lynn Collier shared similar sentiments about Vastine.

“She’s not a yeller, she’s very quiet and likes to let us figure things out on our own,” Collier said. “She trusts us to fix our mistakes but she helps us when we’re struggling to come together as a team.”

Collier, one of four freshmen on Millennium’s roster, has enjoyed observing the way the team runs in hopes of helping the Tigers continue their on-court success in the years to come. 

“I definitely have been learning a lot, I like to watch the girls play and see what they do,” Collier said. 

Last season, Millennium finished with a 35-9 record capping off the year with a trip to the state championship game. where the Tigers lost to Sunnyslope, 3-2. The season prior, the Tigers found themselves with a near perfect 45-1 record on their way to the state championship game, where they beat Sunnyslope 3-0. 

Millennium lost five seniors from last season’s team and other players opted out this season due to COVID-19. Half of the roster this year is new, which has forced the Tigers to quickly band together and build chemistry in order to sustain their recent success.

“At first it was really difficult,” Collier said, "but now we're starting to trust each other, learn from each other and starting to get better as a team.”

“It’s been an interesting journey, we’ve definitely had our ups and downs,” Miller said in regards to the new additions to the team.

“I think that we’re equal to where we were last year, we filled in a lot of the pieces we lost last year with newcomers.”

Prior to the season beginning, Vastine was optimistic. “They have been working hard to pick up where we left off,” she said. “We still have aspirations of going deep into the playoffs again this year.”

This season, the Tigers have started strong behind the play of outside hitters Jones and Miller. Their only loss thus far came against Cactus Shadows in the opening game of the year. 

With the season coming towards an end, the Tigers are on track towards their goal of another state championship -- along with erasing the sting from their loss in last year's title game.