The Gustine Reds volleyball team traveled to meet Stone Ridge Christian to face the Knights in a tough start to the league on Sept. 11. The Reds went into the match with a record of 1-6 and stone Ridge stood at 5-8.

"Going into the game the girls didn't have confidence in themselves; they had a mindset that Stone Ridge was a private school so automatically they were going to be better," Coach Toni Adams stated. The Reds lost in 3 sets. 

The team struggled with finding momentum and confidence in their playing ability. While some players weren't playing at their fullest other players stepped up to fill in those spots. "

Shandel Aguilera Casillas stepped up to encourage her teammates to keep pushing. She also had good hits and kept the ball going. Another player that stepped up was Ashlyn Tovar Reyes, she is one of our liberos and had some good digs as the other team had good serves," Adams said. A libero is a defensive specialist in indoor volleyball who plays in the back row and is responsible for receiving serves and defending against attacks. 

Between sets, the girls are given time to reset and try to focus on what is working and what might have gone wrong, so in the next set they will be able to improve it. Communication is a huge factor in the game of volleyball. Adams tries to keep the girls focused and make sure that they see what they need to change.

"I give the girls a quick glimpse of what I saw and what they should focus on for the next set,” she said. “I set a goal for the girls to reach every set and push them to reach it. The girls know they need to talk and communicate with each other throughout every set."

For the next game coming up against Modesto Christian, Coach Adams says she is working on keeping the team focused on scoring the whole game, since recently they have been getting to a certain point and then start crashing.

 "Our focus is to build team encouragement, and sportsmanship and to have confidence in each other. Each player is in a designated spot for a reason and they need to trust in that. Their focus is to play their game and no one else’s. When I say this, I mean that they need to play to their ability and not ease up or be discouraged based on the other team" Adams said.