Girls’ Volleyball Reclaims Dominance

After over a month of preparation, the Vixens, Stuyvesant’s girls’ varsity volleyball team played their first league game on Tuesday, September 25. They faced Seward Park High School, one of their biggest rivals for the past few years and the only team they lost to in last year’s season. This year was different, however, as they left the match with smiles on their faces having won both sets, the first by a wide margin in a score of 25-6.

While the team’s second set win was slightly narrower, senior and co-captain Ally Archer attributed the narrow win to the humidity, which made the gym a terrible location for the match. “It felt like there was a line of water on the ground, and no one wanted to move; people were falling everywhere,” Archer said. “We were kind of playing very tentatively and giving [the other team] free points.”

The Vixens persevered, however, capitalizing on the fact that Seward High School had evidently lost some vital players with last year’s graduating class. “They didn’t have that many great players that were making it very difficult for us. I feel like this year is the year of people losing good seniors for volleyball,” Archer said, alluding to similar losses the Vixens faced with the 2018 graduation.

Having lost nearly their entire starting lineup, the Vixens are becoming closer, as players who were pushed to the bench in past years are now stepping up. “Alina Luckey, for example, never got to play much last year, and now she’s playing as a senior, and her serves are bullets; no one can defend against them, and it’s so much fun to see that,” Archer said.

The Vixens have historically struggled with distributing playing time between its members, an issue the team has been working to address recently. “I feel like I’m not one to talk because I got to play as a freshman,” Archer said. “But it has definitely been an issue because people on the bench have always felt a little excluded, so it’s wonderful to see them being able to step up.”

Going forward, the team is focusing on fundamental skills like serving and receiving to ensure that when it comes to the more complicated plays, the basics come easily. “I know our potential is so, so high this year; we can go so, so far. We just need to make sure we play clean, play smart, and overall execute well,” Archer said.