The City High volleyball team is currently ranked number two in the preseason poll. With the team making it to the first round of state last year, and losing to Ankeny, the team has a lot of returning players that they hope will help them get back to state.

“I think we’re going to be a very strong team because of our outside school relationships, we’re all close knit and we have a lot of younger people so we can only get stronger. I think if we play to our ability we have a great chance of getting to state but everyone has to be on their A game and do their position as best as they can to work together,” Alexa Ingram ‘17 said.

The team loses Rylee Price ‘15, who will be replaced by Shannon Stamp ‘17. They also lost Sarah Plock ‘15 who will be replaced by either Ellie Dixon ‘17 or Grace Brown ‘17.

“Comparing to last year we lost a few valuable players. But from who we picked up from the freshman class as well as the sophomore, I think we are very similar in ability to last year,” Ashley Smith ‘16 said. “Obviously we miss our seniors from last year but we have been working very hard to fill in the gaps and build on what we have this year.”

The first volleyball game is set to be today, September 1st at City High against Cedar Rapids Washington at 7:00 p.m. in the big gym.

“It’s really interesting to see the new parts to our team compared to last year after losing some good seniors. Tonight we finally get to see what we’re like on the court and against another team besides ourselves,” Stamp ‘17 said. “I think our overall goal for the season is to live up to that expectation and go even further this year than we did last year.”