At the beginning of their first season of CIF girls volleyball competition, the Providence Hall Lions were just hoping to get a win or two.
“I wish people could have seen our first day at practice. We were telling them how many touches you can have on each side of the net, and half of them had never played,” said coach Laura Trudelle.
A couple of months later, they were 8-8 and headed to the postseason. It all came to an end on Tuesday, as Providence Hall went down to Pasadena to play St. Monica Academy in the first round of the Division V-A playoffs and fell 25-16, 25-19, 29-27.
Faith Emerson led the way with eight kills, 11 digs and two blocks while Olivia Barroca and Jenna Wilcox combined for 19 digs and passed superbly, according to Trudelle.
“In the first two games we had the jitters and were missing a lot of serves, but that’s to be expected in the first playoff experience,” said Trudelle. “Before the third game we talked about how it could potentially be our last game as a team, and that if we were going to go down we were gonna go down swinging. We looked like a totally different team.”
The team will be mostly intact next season, with Hailey Barroca being the only graduating senior.
An impressive run for a largely inexperienced team. Great job this season!
The Lions played with steady determination and showed a lot of class. Way to go Providence – can’t wait to watch you again next year!