Scottie seniors
For the most part, high school coaches get to know their players over the course of a long season.
Freeman volleyball coach Kenny Davis had a head start with this year’s senior class, which finishes its career Friday and Saturday at Yakima’s SunDome in the State 1A championships.
“This group of seniors have pretty much all grown up together,” Davis said. “Five of the six have been together since kindergarten. And since they’re all the same age as my daughter, Kasey, they’ve all had sleepovers at my house at one time or another over the years. I know them, I know their parents. That’s a special relationship.”
In both directions.
“You can’t get away with a thing,” senior Claire Moberg said. “The coach knows us too well. Even when we’re down, he knows it and talks to us about it. It works and it makes us a better team.”
“It’s kinda hard to get away with anything when the coach knows you, knows your family and has known you from way back,” senior Brenda Trejbal laughed.
Five seniors start for Freeman: Jessie DePell, Jesica Jackson, Crystal Heigh, Moberg and Trejbal. A sixth, Emma Croston comes off the bench. The five starters have been together since Mrs. Gross’ kindergarten class and have played volleyball together for six seasons.
“When you know each other as well as we do, it’s pretty easy to talk to one another,” DePell said. “We know how to talk to one another.”
“At the same time, it makes our success that much sweeter,” Heigh explained. “We’ve been through all this time together. It’s been a long year and on one hand I’m looking forward to the season ending. But at the same time, I don’t want it to end at all.”
Add that familiarity to the fact that the five starting seniors have played in a collective 15 state tournaments and you have a rare mix – but a mix lacking completely in one surprising area.
“There isn’t an ego in the whole bunch,” Davis said. “All they care about is winning. They don’t care at all about what stats they have or who gets the ball whenever. Just so long as they win – that’s all they care about.”
And win they have.
The Scotties finished the regular season tied with Colfax for the Northeast A League championship – the school’s first since it was a member of the Bi-County League (“That happened so long ago I don’t know exactly when it was,” Davis admitted. “It was in the 1980s sometime.”)
What’s more, the Scotties knocked off Colfax for the first time since 1994 – on Senior Night at Freeman, no less.
“That was such a great night,” Jackson said. “And for it to be Senior Night made it that much more special.
“We’ve always played tough matches with Colfax and we all want to beat them so badly. It felt good.”
Freeman heads in to the state tournament for the sixth consecutive season and the eighth time in the past decade. In their current streak, the Scotties are in search of a fifth trophy to show for it.
“I tell the kids that the trophies aren’t important,” Davis said. “Trophies collect dust on a shelf somewhere. But memories will last forever. That’s what really matters.”
The Scotties have experience playing in the SunDome – a venue unlike any they play in during the regular season. And they have experience playing in the rarified air of a state tournament.
DePell will play her fourth state volleyball tournament. Moberg, Jackson and Trejbal all went as sophomores. Heigh is headed to her second state tournament while Croston is going for the first time.
“I’m the only one in the senior class who hasn’t played at state,” Croston said. “I’m not entirely sure what to expect, but I’m looking forward to it. I know it’s going to be an experience I’ll never forget.”
Trejbal’s first state tournament was memorable.
“I put her in the game and she said she didn’t want to go,” Davis laughed. “I said don’t worry about it, but you never know when you’re going to get back.”
“That was me,” Trejbal laughed. “That year we had a big senior class and it was pretty intimidating to play with them. At the same time, I think we learned a lot from the way they played and how they carried themselves.”
Because of the way the tournament entries are divvied up between the Northeast A League and the Caribou Trail League, Freeman enters the state tournament as the No. 2 seed from the CTL. The Scotties play Life Christian in the 9 a.m. opener and will likely play arch-rival Colfax in the second round.
For DePell and Moberg, especially, it will be an opportunity for just desserts. The last time a team from Colfax played a team from Freeman in the SunDome, it was last year’s state championship basketball game and the Bulldogs upset the top-ranked Scotties.
“It’s going to be a little weird, no doubt about that,” Moberg said. “There are lots of mixed emotions about that, but it would be so good to return the favor.”