The Pella Dutch volleyball team has had a challenging season. According to senior leaders Courtney Thompson and Emma Pleima the Lady Dutch had highs and lows throughout the season.

 “We had a lot of good games, we beat the #9 ranked Knoxville at our home tournament which was really good for us, and we also beat some other big teams, but we did lose key games that would’ve been helpful for us,” said Thompson. 

Every team faces difficulties and Pleima believed one of those for them this season was losing their senior players who graduated last spring.

“I’d say we’re a pretty young team. This year we have a lot of sophomores, freshmen, juniors and even some seniors that didn’t see any playing time last year because we had such an amazing senior class last year; so we’re all pretty new and fresh to the varsity scene,” said Pleima.  “I think that is a difficulty we’ve had to overcome all season; just not being as experienced as other teams, but it made us grow together and become more of a team.” 

Along with difficulties come strengths and team chemistry is one that these girls have. Team chemistry is proven to make a team more productive because they understand what each member brings.  

“I think that Team chemistry was pretty big. We were also very close as a team and we got along a lot; team bonding was important to us, we had a camp out at the beginning of summer and throughout the season we had different things that are bonding for our team,’’ Thompson.

Playoffs started Wednesday, October 23, 2019, against Washington, and they took the win in 4 sets. Then they played Marion on Tuesday, October 29 and lost 0-3. 

“Our best goal is to go to state,” said Pleima “but even if that doesn’t happen, we’ve built friendships and made so many memories throughout the season, that it probably won’t matter to us either way if we win or lose.”