Excitement. Energy. Expectations.<\/p>\n
Take your pick. All three are spilling out of the Kent-Meridian High gymnasium these days.<\/p>\n
Excitement, because after nearly 10 months of anticipation, the Royals are back on the volleyball court. It has brought a new-found energy that has rejuvenated a program which, until last year, had struggled mightily to compete in one of the most rigorous volleyball leagues in the state.<\/p>\n
Add the two together and the Royals, contrary to so many previous years, have expectations \u2014 not only to compete, but to make a legitimate challenge to the volleyball powers that call the South Puget Sound League North Division home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re high,\u201d said Kent-Meridian coach Mike Christiansen of K-M\u2019s expectations. \u201cWhen you return as many kids as we do on a team that did as well as it did last year, we should do better than third.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the beginning of last fall, the program at the East Hill school was hardly a blip on the volleyball radar in the North Division. Sure, Christiansen believed. So did his players. And by the time the final whistle blew on the season, those players had delivered bigger dividends than any of the school\u2019s teams during the past decade.<\/p>\n
The Royals won 15 matches, including a 6-2 SPSL North record and clinched a playoff berth, something that hadn\u2019t happened since the Mel Tuivai-led 2001 bunch. To put that accomplishment into better perspective, K-M came into 2008 having won just 11 league matches in their last six seasons \u2013 combined.<\/p>\n
Now, despite graduating standouts Davina Fuiava and McKaley Brewer, among others, the Royals have the highest expectations they\u2019ve had since the late \u201990s.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a new feeling for them,\u201d Christiansen acknowledged. \u201cBut this is a school that has had a good volleyball tradition and we\u2019ve had a good athletic tradition. \u2026 Athletically across the board (at K-M) with football, track, soccer, volleyball, basketball \u2026 these sports are trying to get back to that tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n
With tradition and expectations comes pressure.<\/p>\n
But this year\u2019s edition of the Royals is ready to live up to the hype and challenge for a league title, something the Kent-Meridian has not won since 1994 under coach Drew Terry, who later led Kentlake to three straight state championships.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just ready to go out and play with my team,\u201d said right-side hitter Kayla Ierlan, one of the North Division\u2019s top returning players this season. \u201cI don\u2019t know what we\u2019re going to achieve because we\u2019re really good right now. But I think we\u2019ll do really well this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
This goes beyond ordinary preseason optimism, when virtually every team believes it\u2019s capable of forging a perfect record. For Kent-Meridian, which returns four starters (Ierlan, Cherene O\u2019Hara, Tanya Pyatohka and Raj Dhaliwal) the optimism is real. And their chances are legitimate, especially when considering top teams such as Kentwood and Kentlake, which have combined to account for seven of the last nine North Division crowns, graduated loads of top-tier talent.<\/p>\n
Knowing there\u2019s plenty at stake is a feeling many of the Royals haven\u2019t experienced in the past.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did so well last year that we do have a lot of pressure on us,\u201d said the lankly 6-foot O\u2019Hara, a second-team all-leaguer a year ago. \u201cWe feel that we\u2019ve shown that we\u2019re good, and now, we have to continue to work on our skills and improve as a team. But it\u2019s mostly pressure that we put on ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
When league matches begin on Sept. 23, the only pressure the Royals are hoping to feel is that which they are putting on their opponents. The ultimate goal for this group is no longer just to hang in there and challenge for one of the five North Division playoff berths, but rather to be in the hunt for a league title, something K-M hasn\u2019t achieved since 1991.<\/p>\n
And \u2014 if all breaks right \u2014 earn their first state berth since 1998.<\/p>\n
\u201cWinning the league title is something we really want to do and making it to state,\u201d Ierlan said. \u201cI definitely think we can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which adds one more aspect to the list of how the Royals are feeling these days:<\/p>\n
Confidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Excitement. Energy. Expectations. Take your pick. All three are spilling out of the Kent-Meridian High gymnasium these days. Excitement, because after nearly 10 months of anticipation, the Royals are back on the volleyball court. It has brought a new-found energy that has rejuvenated a program which, until last year, had struggled mightily to compete in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":7983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-7982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7982"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7982"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}