The Winfield Mt-Union volleyball team is looking to continue the success of last year and better it.
The Wolves lost to Holy Trinity Catholic in the final round of regional play, just missing the state tournament.
They finished 28-8 last year, but lose their top killer in Alicia Escher who had 291 kills last year and was on the all-district team, but the good news is Erica Robinson who was also all-district comes back with her 275 kills. Also coming back on the offensive side is Shelby Therme with 199 kills and Emily Mathews with 136 kills.
The Wolves will need to find a new setter to replace Katie Benson and her 712 assists last year, but defensively they should be okay with the return of Robinson and Therme both having over 320 digs last year.
Head coach Dave Pieart said last year was a good year, but there are still goals to accomplish this year from last year.
“We set a variety of goals and came very close to accomplishing all of them,” Pieart said. “We were one game short of state, we were one game short of winning a couple of tournaments and we were one game short of winning conference, so while we had tremendous success last year there’s things to build on, there is little bitty things that we can accomplish this year that we didn’t last, and that is our focus right now is to take that one more step.”
The Wolves kick things off at West Burlington on August 29, and will start conference on September 5 with L-M. One game that WMU will need to win to give them a better shot a conference title will be Mediapolis on September 19, which is right before the conference tournament starts on September 26 and 28.
WMU will finish their season with WACO on October 10 and Wapello on October 15 before the regional tournament starts on October 22.