The 2021-2022 Silver Creek Volleyball team kicked off their fall season in August after having just a few open gyms and a weekend camp over the summer . Throughout the summer volleyball athletes participated in a four day long camp provided by the school run by the Gold Medal Squared program. The camp allowed the players the chance to connect with one another and also get everyone on the same page as far as how Creek volleyball is run.

Tryouts were held the first week of school in August where twelve girls were named to the varsity roster as well as the JV, C, and D teams. The Raptors started their second season in the newly formed 4A/5A NCAA Conference as one of only two teams in the conference considered a 5A team. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights of the volleyball season so far as well as checking in on star alumni.

UPDATED COVID REGULATIONS

The Raptors are coming off of a shortened 3-7 season, a season which was nowhere near normal. Per CHSAA (Colorado High School Activities Association) and Boulder County mandate teams were required to wear masks, limit fans, decrease the number of games, maintain minimal contact between players (no high fiving before and after games), and probably the biggest change, moving the normal fall season to the spring.

This change wasn’t taken lightly by players and parents who didn’t like the switch to a spring high school volleyball season. This is because most high school volleyball players also participate in a competing club league outside of highschool, which begins in the winter and goes through the spring.

Stella Starck, a senior varsity middle blocker, was one of many athletes who played on a club team and on the high school volleyball team at the same time. “Going from one practice to another was a little challenging, especially trying to fit in driving home from practice, eating dinner, and then driving to club practice. Everything was super tight,” she went on to say. “The team handled the high amount of playing well, and I enjoyed the amount of activity.” The Raptors took on these challenges, despite seeing quarantines left and right, while also starting their first season in a new 4A/5A NCAA conference, made up of some of the best teams in the state.

SILVER CREEK VOLLEYBALL ALUMNI

Silver Creek has been known to produce stand-out D1 potential players. In 2019, the team graduated a stud player, Caitlin Volkman. During her highschool career Volkmann racked up numerous honors and broke school and state records.

As a junior, she led the state with 552 kills on the year, while also being named second team all-state and first team all-league. Volkman’s senior season she earned first team all-state, first-team all-league, Northern Conference 4A Player of the Year. Volkman wasn’t only a stud on the court, earning all-state academic selections all four years of high school. Halfway through Volkman’s senior year, she verbally committed to play at the division one level, playing indoor and beach volleyball at Sacramento State University.

Now in her sophomore season, she is already back to racking up awards, earning all-tournament recognition at the Sacramento state preseason tournament, as well as all conference academic awards and honor roll recognition. Volkman also recently had a career-high 18 kills in the Hornets five-set win against Idaho University.

LOOKING BACK TO BE BEING CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS

This year the Silver Creek varsity squad is graduating more than half of their roster with 7 seniors, three of which were part of last year’s team. The team’s star outside hitter, Megan Sotiroff, has been a key member of the team for the past three years, racking up 558 career kills, 61 blocks, 207 digs, and a whopping 80 aces. All of these statistics are bound to go up with the second half of the season coming up.

Two years ago, during the 2019-2020 volleyball season, Sotiroff and the Raptors had a record of 19-6 on the season while going undefeated (14-0) in the conference, taking 1st in the 5A/4A Northern League.

Reflecting back on the win against Thompson Valley, which secured the league title for the Raptors, Sotiroff explains,“We had just scored the final point to end the game and the amount of happiness in all my teammate’s faces was the best part of the night.” After finishing out the regular season untouched, the raptors headed down south to compete in the regional tournament in hopes of making their return to the state tournament.

Unfortunately, the team finished their season down in Pueblo with a 1-1 record, sweeping Standley Lake in three sets and losing to the eventual regional champions Pueblo West in a 1-3 standoff.

CROSS TOWN RIVALRY GAME AGAINST LONGMONT

Each year, for every sport, the Silver Creek vs Longmont, head to head, is always highly anticipated. After the football team unfortunately lost 45-33 the week before, everyone was looking to volleyball to get the big redemption win. Going into the game, the Longmont Trojans were 6-6 on the season and 4-3 in league play. The Raptors were coming off two back-to-back sweeps against Greeley Central and Greeley West, moving their record to 2-9 and 2-4 in the league. The first set went to Longmont, as Silver Creek had a slow start and could never get ahead, losing the set 21-25.

The close proximity of the two schools made certain that both student sections were going to make themselves known, especially after not being able to be in the gym to support last year because of COVID regulations.

Having fans in the gym affected the players tremendously. Sotiroff says, “Surprisingly enough, a student section could change the whole game. Being able to have a student section for my final year of volleyball has made the experience so much better than last year”. The Raptors gave the student section something to cheer about during the start of the second set going on an 8-0 scoring run.

The Raptors took the strong lead and ran with it, never letting the Trojans back in until the last few points, meeting the Raptors at 24-24. But after a timeout, called by the Raptors head coach, John Miller, the team went back onto the court calm, cool, and collected, with full confidence that they could finish out the set. With two back-to-back kills by Starck, the Silver Creek Raptors tied the score a set apiece.

Since then, Longmont lost their rhythm. With Longmont finding it difficult to take a lead, the Raptors won the next two sets, winning three sets to one. The Raptors finished the game with 15 aces, 63 digs, and 49 kills. Twenty of those kills came off Sotiroff’s hot arm, producing big plays when they needed them the most. Another big piece of the four-set win was libero Teya Lepro, who many describe as fearless on the court, diving for everything and anything, she recorded 11 digs and 37 serve receptions.

Varsity middle blocker April Conilogue had many emotions after the win, “The win against Longmont felt really good, we have been having trouble connecting on the court and things weren’t going how we wanted, but I think getting the win showed how our team has persevered through the troubles we’ve gone through and how we grew stronger from it.”