Despite their record, the Garfield Volleydogs are improving. The Volleydogs are finally beginning to feel familiar with each other as a team, which incorporates several underclassmen.

“The freshmen are learning how to fight a little bit harder,” said senior captain Erica Jornlin.

The improvement was evident when the team played Inglemoor last Tuesday. In the Inglemoor game, the Volleydogs lost the first two games, but then came back and won the next two. Although they didn’t win the match, they showed that they had made some strides. The Garfield Volleydogs currently sit at 2 – 5 overall, but their record might be a little deceiving. Three of their losses came against the top teams from KingCo 3A, Newport, Interlake, and Mercer Island. The good news is that the season is still young. What matters the most is that Garfield won its first league game 3 – 0 over much improved conference rival, Franklin. And with the conference schedule under way, the real season starts now. These games are what matter. The goal, as stated at the beginning of the season by Jornlin, is to finish in the top eight in KingCo, so that the team can play for a state tournament berth at districts.

The season isn’t getting any easier now that conference play has begun.

“We need to come out with a little more passion for the game,” said Jornlin “We can’t come out thinking we’re going to lose.”

Several teams look strong in KingCo. Woodinville, Bothell, and Eastlake are all off to great starts. But Garfield isn’t wary of its opponents.

“We’re not intimidated, we played a lot of these girls in club,” said senior Alexandra Ndegwa.

The Newport game was quite a sight to see, as Newport brought in 6’5” senior Lauren Barfield, who has committed to play for the University of Washington next year. Barfield soared above all Volleydogs, whose tallest player is 5’11” Shantea Cardenas. Erica Jornlin went neck and neck with Barfield that game, totaling the same number of kills as the Newport star. Although the Bulldogs lost, they bounced back the next game, sweeping Franklin three games to none. Senior setter Carly Tsutakawa had 25 assists, while Jornlin dominated with 18 kills and 10 digs. Jornlin played so well that she was named the “Morning Star” in the Seattle Times daily prep sports blog.

The Volleydogs weren’t the only ones receiving praise recently in the media. The Seattle Times posted on its blog a story about Volleydog fans following the West Seattle game. The Times writer, Tom Wyrich, said that in all his years of going to volleyball games, he has never been to one like the one he went to at Garfield.

Even though the team is young, it is still playing beyond its years. In the past, it would have been unheard of for this many freshmen to be playing on varsity. Typically, the freshmen would be gaining valuable experience on junior varsity, but the team was a little thin this year and had to dip into the underclassmen to fill out the roster.

While the season is barely into conference play, the Volleydogs are just starting to find their footing in the league.

“KingCo’s pretty even this year, I’d say it’s more of a battle of will than skill,” said Jornlin.

Experience is key at the varsity level, and not many Volleydogs have much of it. The team knows what it has to do is to finish in the top eight in KingCo. The seniors have experienced it when they went to state their sophomore year. They aren’t worried.

“We’ll definitely go to districts,” said Ndegwa.

Also new this year, KingCo will send three teams to state. The games matter now, and if the Volleydogs continue to play the way they played in their conference opener, and continue to get improvement out of their underclassmen, then making it to districts shouldn’t be a problem.