Emma Ricuito is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Deer Valley High School for AZPreps365.com

The Deer Valley Skyhawks girls volleyball team has high expectations for the 2019 season after back-to-back regional championship wins in 2017 and 2018. Coach Jackie Wallace and her team are hopeful and determined to do great things this year, even after their season ended in the second round of the state championships last year.

“Obviously little things add up,” said Wallace, on the disappointing game against Salpointe Catholic that ended Deer Valley’s season in 2018.

But keeping a confident mentality and taking advantage of their team comradery is something the girls are looking forward to in the upcoming months, and it has already started. The team is out to a 12-3 start, thanks in part to strong leadership.

Captains Bailey Fuches, Savannah Davis and Kaitlin Brown motivate their teammates and make sure everyone stays on the same page. They think that keeping up these optimistic attitudes and positive energies will help the team and is a huge part of producing wins.

“We all have the same mindset of wanting to win state,” Brown, a senior, said.

With four seniors, seven juniors, four sophomores, and two freshmen, most of this team is returning from last year and all have one goal in mind: To win it all.

“I feel like we have a good chance to make it to the championship,” said Davis, a fellow senior.

Davis has been on the team since she was a freshman, and Wallace noted how extraordinary it’s been to see Davis and her teammates grow up together and extend their skills and knowledge of the game to get to where they are now.

“As long as we stay healthy, we should get the ‘three-peat’,” Wallace said. Wallace believes she has a team of very experienced and mature players and is excited to see what they can do this upcoming season.

With one win in their section already under their belt in 2019, the Skyhawks are making every game count.

“We want to beat the teams we lost to last year,” Fuches said. Executing game plans and sticking to them is something the team will try to achieve to reduce any mistakes.

The Skyhawks are looking forward to those rematches because they now believe their team is better, and they’re ready to show their growth from last year.

Finishing last season with an 8-0 record at home, the team clearly prefers to play on their own grounds. The Skyhawks are already 4-0 when playing at Deer Valley this year. On that Wallace said, “There’s nothing like home court advantage.”