Windsor in first place nearing halfway point in season
The Windsor High School volleyball squad continued its best start in the program’s history last week, scoring convincing victories over league rivals Casa Grande and Cardinal Newman.
The pair of wins kept the Jaguars unbeaten atop the North Bay League standings at 6-0 and 12-2 overall.
At press time the Jags were preparing to wrap up the first round-robin of NBL action on Oct. 4 against Rancho Cotate before making an Oct. 6 visit to perennial power Maria Carrillo.
Start times beginning with the frosh are 4/5/6:30 p.m.
While surprising to some, Windsor’s hot start and dominance in the first half of NBL play comes as no shock to the WHS coaching staff.
“The girls are playing well but definitely haven’t exceeded my expectations,” veteran coach Rich Schwarz said. “Coming into this season I personally felt that if we played anywhere near our potential we would be the team to beat. We’ve had some really nice matches but haven’t even come close to playing as well as we can. To get there we’re going to have to increase how intense and competitive we practice the rest of the season.”
Jags win a pair
Windsor won its latest stretch of league action on Sept. 27 against visiting Casa Grande, easily dispatching the Gauchos in straight sets; 25-15, 25-15 and 25-21.
“Casa was playing without several of their players who are out with injuries,” Schwarz said. “This was one of those matches where we played well enough to win in three straight, but not to the level we have come to expect.”
Pacing the Windsor attack were junior defensive specialist Celina Sylvester (2.22 serve receive average), outside hitter Allison Post (17 kills, 0 errors), sophomore outside hitter Destiny Clark (8 kills) and senior setter Bridget Aikawa (24 assists, 2 aces).
The Jags traveled to face unbeaten Cardinal Newman in a key litmus test two nights later, turning back the Cardinals in four; 25-19, 15-25, 25-19 and 25-21.
“We had a good practice on Wednesday going over the things we knew we could do against them and working on what we knew were their strengths that we had to shut down,” Schwarz said. “Overall the game plan worked out despite not executing all aspects of what we trained for.”
Statistical leaders for Windsor included Aikawa (33 assists) and Post (19 kills).
Other standout performances were had by Elena Dyer, libero Kylie Benjamin, middle hitter Brittany Johnson, rightside hitter Yessenia Sanchez and defenders Sylvester and Nikki Young.
