With the start of the new school year comes many action-packed fall sports like water polo, football, and tennis. Particularly, a sport to highlight is Girls Volleyball, as the Arcadia High School (AHS) Girls Varsity, JV, and Frosh-Soph Volleyball teams are having great seasons so far. With early victories against Bishop Amat and La Salle High School, both our Varsity, JV, and Frosh-Soph players are off to a great start. It’s especially impressive from the new Frosh-Soph team, which makes up the majority of the freshmen on the team, including Isla Crawford.
Isla Crawford, a freshman on the Girls Frosh-Soph team, is especially excited about what these wins will bring to the team this year. Although it may be Crawford’s first year of high school, it’s certainly not her first volleyball season.
“I started [volleyball] when I was 8 years old because of my older sister who played all throughout college,” Crawford recalled.
Crawford was born to an active family with siblings constantly busy with sports, so when she started volleyball, she too found her calling. Beginning her journey as a libero, she played club volleyball at Forza 1 throughout elementary school. When she transitioned into middle school, she moved to the outside position, balancing both school and club volleyball. Now as a high school student, she switched to her current position as a setter.
Like any school sport, Crawford is aware of the precautions she has to take in order to stay on top of her work. The Girls Frosh-Soph Volleyball team has practice starting from 4:30-6:30 p.m., and on some occasions it can go a little over that.
“It is kind of hard to manage my time for homework,” Crawford admitted. “But I just try to do it before practice. I end up finishing around 11:00 pm on most nights.”
Despite the load of homework Crawford has to endure some evenings, there have been some highlights. It’s never easy being a freshman at a new school, and it makes it harder coming from out of district, but fortunately volleyball has helped Crawford. During the summer, she attended the Girls Volleyball Camp here at Arcadia High School.
“I had a lot of fun and made some good friends that I talk to now, but it was kind of hard to wake up at 5 a.m. everyday,” Crawford recalled.
Aside from making friends, Crawford said that the Volleyball Camp was able to help her in more ways than one.
Because of the early practices, Crawford had enough time for the rest of the day. This gave her weeks to prepare for her upcoming tryouts where she later made it onto the Frosh-Soph team.
The camp also taught her to consistently put in effort and work hard everyday, which would manifest into Crawford’s method for approaching her academic classes.
“Growing up, I used to be really shy and wouldn’t look out for myself. Through playing volleyball, especially this summer at the camp, I was able to develop that confidence I need and can apply in my daily life,” Crawford expressed.
As for the current volleyball season, Crawford feels hopeful. “I feel like we’re going to do pretty good this season as long as we bond together as a team,” she said.
With the potential talent that the three teams already possess, there’s a good chance that they’ll be successful this year. Go lady Apaches!
Photo by Caitlyn Chau
