Emilie Simpson is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Valley Christian High School for AZPreps365.com.

 

Valley Christian High School girls volleyball team faced the Florence Gophers at home on October 15, securing a 3-0 victory with straight scores of 25-11, 25-17 and 25-6. This improved their unbeaten conference record to 12-0 in the 3A Central conference.

Senior setter Madison Brown-McAlpine opened the first set by recording 12 assists within the first set. This continued throughout the game with Brown-McAlpine finishing with a recorded 24 total assists. This came just two weeks after Brown-McAlpine became one of only two on record to surpass 3,000 career assists among the Trojans.

“It's such a great achievement and I'm super proud of myself,” Brown-McAlpine said after the game. “After hitting that record, I hope I can keep getting better and helping the team and putting on good performances like we did tonight.”

The Trojans attack was helped by the addition of the sophomores including outside hitter, Sydney Simon, with seven kills recorded and middle blocker Sadie Wahlin who recorded nine kills, which were in the top three highest totals out of any contributing player. Florence managed to record 16 kills total.

“We all played our part today,” Wahlin said post game. “I love to see the younger players like myself and Sydney stepping up and contributing to the team's performance. Even with the slight struggle we had, I trust everybody so much so knew we were going to bounce back.”

Defensively, Valley Chrsitian conceded 34 points total with Wahlin leading with a total 6 blocks and junior Ellie Gregg recording 11 digs across the three sets.

“I'm proud of our defensive record this season so far,” Wahlin said. “After the slight hiccup we faced in the second set, I thought we got back to our standards for the third set and hopefully we can keep that going into our next game.”

In the second set, the Trojans had a total 6 serve errors and 6 attacking errors resulting in a close yet victorious set with a score of 25-17. 

However, Valley Christian’s bench showed off its depth utilizing all 12 members of the available roster during the game. Unfortunately for the Trojans, four-time varsity outside hitter and member of All-American watchlist, Kelsey Brooks was unavailable.

“Kelsey tore her ACL back in December and was getting close to making a full recovery,” Coach Tyler Trathen said. “Sadly during her recovery process she ended up re-tearing her ACL and will be out for the rest of the season. It's a huge loss, but I know what my team is capable of.”

The third set included contributions from both the starting and bench players for the Trojans as the set ended in a score of 25-6 with Ansley Venkatesh recording a total 11 assists and a 90% serving percentage. 

The game concluded as a straight set win for Valley Christian with the final statistics reflecting the team performance: serving percentage of 91.7%, eight total aces and a compiled 38 digs compared to Florence’s 16.

“I'm looking forward to the rest of the season, especially senior night,” Trathen said. “I'm hoping to continue the unbeaten record and honor the seniors who have contributed to this program hugely.”