Emma Ricuito is a student journalist at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University assigned to cover Deer Valley High School volleyball.

The Deer Valley Skyhawks girls volleyball team rose to the occasion to defeat the Seton Catholic Prep Sentinels 3-0 at home on Tuesday.

Deer Valley is now 8-0 overall on the season, after a revenge-driven, stellar performance against Seton Catholic on their home court.

In last year’s matchup against the Sentinels, the Skyhawks fell 3-1, which would wind up being one of the team’s very few losses in the 2018 season. The Skyhawks looked to change that result this time around, and they were successful.

“That’s a huge a win for us. We had lost to them last year, so we wanted this game,” Deer Valley coach Jackie Wallace said. “That was one of our goals, and I’m proud of my girls for reaching that.”

In the first set with a score of 25-21, Deer Valley had kills from Bailey Fuches, Savannah Davis, and Kaitlin Brown.

“One of our goals is to beat all the teams we lost to last year, so beating them is just one step closer to our goal,” Brown said.

Brown also credited the student section for helping the team stay motivated and allowing them to keep going. “If we’re on a run, and they keep screaming, it’s obviously going to help us more,” Brown said. “They’ll help cheer us even if we’re down.”

After a steady period in the second set with the two teams going back and forth for the lead, the Skyhawks were able to hold the Sentinels to 16 points, taking the set with a score of 25-16.

To finish off the match, Deer Valley played its best set last, winning the third 25-11.

Davis had a handful of kills and a couple of aces in the last two sets. She credited her personal game, as well as the team’s performance, to how much they all wanted to defeat the school that did that to them just last season.

“I realized that this team beat us last year, but I wanted to come out and show them this is our year,” Davis said. “It’s a different team this year, and I feel like we played a lot better and we were a lot stronger – our team’s gotten older and more mature.”

Davis, middle blocker, is in one of the positions that Wallace knew would specifically be to the team’s advantage. Wallace believed if her players all stuck to their own roles, they would get the job done together and keep the pressure on the Sentinels.

“We know we had to play to our strengths – which is our middles and our outsides – and to put the pressure on them,” she said. “They all have their own job to do, they don’t need to worry about anybody else. If they do their own job, everything’s going to be fine.”

The Skyhawks next game is at 6 p.m. on Thursday against the Desert Edge Scorpions at Deer Valley. This weekend, they play in the Goldwater Festival against the Tucson Badgers, Desert Mountain Wolves and Centennial Coyotes, all at Barry Goldwater High School on Friday.