Olivia Dowell is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Xavier College Prep for AZPreps365.com.

As the starting setter for Xavier’s volleyball team, senior setter Alexa Shiner sees playing conference opponents in the 6A Premier region to close out the regular season as a golden opportunity for her team to improve moving on to the postseason.

“Our conference is extremely competitive and high level,” Shiner said. “We have some very well-known players that we're competing against and it's really a blessing to be able to compete at this high level and it makes the game more fun playing really good opponents and trying to work on our game.”

Xavier College Prep has three more matches against region opponents, including a rematch against Hamilton, a team they came up short against in straight sets, on Oct. 26 in their second-to-last match playing at home in the regular season. The team most recently swept their first of four remaining region matches against Basha on Wednesday on the Bears’ home court.

Head coach Lamar-Renee Bryant said on Sept. 30 after playing Hamilton that playing teams in the 6A Premier region only helps to build her team’s resume moving forward. 

“To be the best, you have to beat the best,” Bryant said. “I love being in the Premier region, that’s one of the best for volleyball in Arizona between Perry, Hamilton, ourselves, it’s tough. The state champions the last six years have come from our region, so I’m happy to be a part of the region.”

As one of the team captains along with Shiner, senior hitter Emma Soderstrom said the team is going in with the mentality that every match matters.

“Things are getting down to the wire,” Soderstrom said. “So, really it’s just having the mentality that every point we can score, we need to score, no matter who’s on the other side of the net.”

For the rest of the competition against region opponents and looking ahead to the postseason, Shiner said the team is simply just working on their techniques to have a solid foot forward in the rest of their matches.

“We're trying to work on strategies and fixing things that we've noticed that have hurt us in the past,” Shiner said. “Just so that we can try to tighten up everything on the court and make it a little bit more competitive, just so that we can really have a solid base to start playing the high-level teams, like Hamilton, at a higher level.”

With the rest of the matches against 6A opponents, Soderstrom said she believes that these would be teams Xavier would be playing if they made it to the state championship due to the level of competition within the 6A Premier region. 

The end goal for the Gators, Shiner and Soderstrom both said, is to win state. But along the way, they just want to work hard and enjoy every moment along the way.

“We’ve been working hard throughout the whole season, but especially right now,” Soderstrom said of the team’s goals. “We’re not taking any moment for granted.”