“I love that I’m able to be a role model for those younger than me because I was once in those shoes looking up to Julia Pierson and saying wow, if I worked that hard that could be me out there my freshman year,” freshman Haley Shewmake said.

Shewmake has played volleyball for over six years and has excelled at the sport.  She looks up to Julia Pierson, a varsity volleyball player. Shewmake now is playing on varsity.

“Julia inspires me because all the effort she gives and the amount of heart she has is incredible,” Shewmake said.

But Shewmake is not alone, she is also joined by freshmen Destini Cole and Kaitlyn Vickery.

“There is a lot of pressure because you don’t want to mess up, and if you do you feel like the upperclassmen will blame you, but this group of girls is the opposite. They help me and tell me if I do something wrong and how to fix it,” Cole said.

Vickery agrees they help and encourage even though they are many years younger.

“Sometimes [they treat me different] just because I’ve never played on varsity before, but other than that, they treat me like a normal player. They always say grade doesn’t matter because we’re all at the same skill and that’s why we’re on varsity,” Vickery said.

Playing a sport can put a lot of pressure on a person, let alone being on varsity as a freshman.

“My advice to any incoming freshmen that want to reach their goal of varsity is no matter how much you don’t want to get up and go play volleyball on your free time, it’s worth going and putting in reps. Some reps are better than no reps at all,” Shewmake said.