With the second half of the District 13-5A volleyball season in full swing, the Hillcrest volleyball team is sitting right where it wants to be.
The Lady Panthers are alone in second place at 10-1 with their lone loss to first-place Woodrow Wilson.
Hillcrest is also the lone 13-5A squad to take a set off the Lady Wildcats, the first time Hillcrest has done so in 15 years.
“We’ve been playing really well and I think things have been going according to plan,” said first-year head coach Candace Balderas-Miller. “We had a challenging preseason schedule and some early injuries and finished just above .500. But the girls have fought back and are really hitting their stride.”
Balderas-Miller noted that improvements could be seen in the team’s first showdown with Wilson.
“The competition was fierce and you could see the progress we’ve made,” she said. “We were district champs last year and they were, too. Now we’re back in the same district, and to take a set off of them for the first time in such a long time is a great sign.”
Hillcrest will get another crack at the Lady Wildcats, this time at home, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Balderas-Miller is hopeful Hillcrest’s strong recent play, in addition to the mental exercises team members have been consistently working on, will make the difference in swinging the final result of the second matchup.
“I think one of the strengths of this team is the focus we have put on mental fitness,” she said. “Last year, when I was just an athletic coordinator, I could see the talent the girls had but I thought mental fitness was an area where we could really improve. You could just see the mental toll the season was taking and that the girls were worn out.”
As a result, Hillcrest’s volleyball players have been doing weekly written and verbal mental exercises throughout the season.
“We started at the beginning of the year and did some exercises as a baseline to kind of scope out where everyone was at,” Balderas-Miller said. “From there, we planned lessons each week to improve and get stronger in some mental areas. Last week, for example, was a lesson on toxic positivity versus positive positivity. The girls have notebooks and prompts and I think you can really see the lessons paying off. There are situations that I don’t think we would have responded as well to last year. And it’s something that will benefit them not just in volleyball, but in life.”
On the court, Hillcrest has not only benefitted from its mental work, but simply by gaining more playing experience.
“Last year, we were really talented, but we were really young,” Balderas-Miller said. “This year, we’re still pretty young when it comes to the grades of our core players, but they’re so much more experienced. That’s really going to benefit us the rest of the season.”
While much of Hillcrest’s core consists of juniors, the Lady Panthers do lean on a trio of seniors in outside hitter Sophia Peabody-Bergh, middle blocker Kamoriya Latham, and libero Ziann Johnson.
Peabody-Bergh has now accrued more than 2,000 kills for her career, including already terminating more than 200 this season.
Latham, meanwhile, has more than 150 blocks on her resume, while Johnson sits at better than 600 digs.
Dartmouth commit and junior middle blocker Maia Tryon and junior setter Anna Albert have also been consistent contributors for the Lady Panthers.
“We would love to come out Tuesday and get the win over Woodrow and have a chance at the district title,” Balderas-Miller said. “But our biggest goal is something that we haven’t been able to accomplish the past couple of seasons and that’s to get a bi-district win. Postseason success is where it’s at for us this year.”
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