Photo by Shensi Ding

The Wayland volleyball team has been brutally practicing in the field house for 5 days a week for the last 8 weeks. But now, as their season is coming to an end with just 3 more weeks of practices and four more games, the girls are putting in their last efforts for a successful ending to the season.

Their last game was against Bedford on Friday night before the football game. Hoping to gain more spectators, the girls wore their jerseys and jammies to school. On Friday, the Freshman and JV teams played first with a best out of three game, and Varsity played after them with a best out of five game.

Before the freshman game, Rebecca Strauss, one of the viewers, said “I’m super-uber excited!” A lot of the players  felt the same way. “I feel the game is gonna go really well, and even though Caitlin [O’Keefe] isn’t here – we all miss her – I’m really glad to be playing on freshman again because of how much fun we have during the game. No matter if we win or lose, we still have fun,” said Zoe Richards, a freshman who plays for the Freshman and JV team. During warmups, Tori Hill, a sophomore on JV, said that the game would be “fantastical, great, superb.”

The freshman played a nail-biting game in the second match, just barely losing by 2 points. The final score was 25-23, with Bedford leading. The JV girls also played an equally exciting game, winning the second match, which led to a third tiebreaker game where Bedford won 25-14. After the game, player Erica Kouka said “I’m really disappointed that we lost, because I think we could have beat them, but I think we played good.”

During the warm ups for the varsity match, players blasted “Evacuate The Dancefloor” on the fieldhouse speakers to help them focus and get into the game, but mainly to calm the palpable pre-game tension in the air. “I’m nervous,” said Brianna Ramsey, a Varsity senior, but one of the two freshman on Varsity, Emily van Mulbregt said “I’m excited!”

Van Mulbregt will be the only freshman varsity player for the rest of the year, as Jen Berkowitz, the 6 ft. freshman starter, has seriously sprained her ankle and will be out for the season. When asked about the injury, all Jen had to say was, “it sucks”.

During the game, Wayland seemed to be ahead for the first half of each match, but then Bedford would catch up with a serving streak by their libero. The final game count was 3-0 Bedford. After the game, players put away the nets and chairs looking forward to their next game. “We played really hard the first couple games, but in the last we got stuck. We played pretty well, we just couldn’t get out of the rut.” says Sami Spielman, a junior. After the game, Brianna said “[I’m] slightly disappointed, but we’ll crush Arlington!”

The volleyball team’s next, and second to last, home game will be this Friday in the fieldhouse against Arlington. The players are all hoping to see a big turnout at the game before the season is over.