The Grant High School women’s volleyball team recently ended a season filled with many successes, including comebacks against both Wilson and Cleveland high schools in Portland Interscholastic League competition. Winning more than half of its games, the team learned to overcome the challenges they faced as a disproportionately young team.
With the loss of eight senior players from last year, the team had to find a way to get back up to where they left off. “We had a pretty huge blank and our whole starting lineup was gone,” says junior Hallie Lamberton. “We really struggled kind of in the beginning. We were kind of intimidated. We didn’t really know what we were going to be like.”
The Generals finished with a 13-8 record in the PIL. They were defeated in the first round of the OSAA state playoffs in three games by Sunset High School.
Throughout the season, the Grant team learned to find motivation. “In the beginning, our goal was to win the PIL, but as the first half of the season went by we realized it wasn’t happening,” says junior Khiarica Rasheed. “So we made another goal like to be undefeated the rest of the season. So we didn’t do that, but we only lost one game in the second half.”
A couple highlights of the season were the team’s comebacks against both Wilson and Cleveland. Senior volleyball captain Molly McGraw recalls the Wilson game. ”We were like gonna go home and it was pretty bad…suddenly something happened and everybody got really turned around and everybody started cheering and screaming at each other,” said McGraw. “It was really fun and we just really battled with them, and actually won the game.”
McGraw finds it sad that she has to leave at this point and says that it’s been a big part of her high school experience. “I really don’t see fall without volleyball, which is why I’m going to play club in college,” she said. She “learned not just physical endurance but also emotional endurance through like really tough times in the game, and that’s helped me through all kinds of life experiences.”
When it comes to next year’s season, Lamberton isn’t worried. “I think that if we all just…play club and all come to the summer workouts we’ll be totally fine,” she said. She has great faith and confidence in the team as a whole, and expects them to go far, “We can really win PIL like no doubt about that…next year we’re going to have so many seniors and like we could really do it if everybody has their minds put for it.”
Even the seniors that are leaving have hopes for the future team. “I hope that they can accomplish the goal that we
had this year, which was to be number one in the PIL,” says Kennidee Teal, a long-time senior on the team. “So hopefully they can accomplish that, I wish them the best of luck.”
