Lancer Veterans lead new team, new direction

Loyalist’s women’s volleyball team is on a winning streak, and they like the taste of victory.

The team’s assistant coach, Amy Hoskin, said all the girls have a drive and determination the coaches haven’t seen in a few years. She said despite having a short bench, there’s no lack of enthusiasm.

“Because we have such small numbers on our team with only nine girls, every girl has to pull her own weight. They have to work even harder because they don’t necessarily have someone to come in for them if they're having a bad game,” Hoskin said.

Co-captain Leighann Bishop has also noticed a change in this year’s team. She said the team is more of a family.

“I feel like on and off the court we work really well together. The girls are a lot less catty with each other,” Bishop said.

She said the team’s dynamic and personality is much better than last year’s, because they’re much more willing to help each other.

The team has four veteran players leading them this year — co-captains Bishop and Kirsten Talsma, along with LeeAnne Jeffs and Sherene Einarsson.

Loyalist has not won an Ontario Colleges Athletic Association championship yet, but 19-year-old Einarsson says she thinks this could be their year.

“Last year we were under a lot of pressure because it [provincials] was hosted here, and we still managed to pull through that and do fairly well,” she said

Einarsson plays left side on the team and is currently enrolled in her second year of practical nursing at the college.

Jeffs, a 19-year-old child and youth worker student, said the team spirit is great this year.

“Since it [provincials] isn’t hosted here this year, there isn’t as much pressure, but I think we’re still going to do really well. We’re really confident with our team this year,” she said.

Hoskin said they can definitely keep up with the top teams.

“At the tournaments we came up against some of the biggest teams out there and played right with them, so I think we have really good chances this year,” she said.

Hoskin, Bishop, Einarsson and Jeffs all agree that Cambrian College and Trent University are the main competition at the moment.

“Last year they [Cambrian] beat us throughout the whole season until we beat them in provincials,” Jeffs said.

Hoskin said that based on the intense competition Loyalist faced from Trent last year they expected Trent to be a very strong team this year.

“We were lucky enough to play them right from the beginning and we ended up beating them,” Hoskin said. “That was a huge win for us to start with. Everyone really has that drive, they really want to win, they’ve got a taste of the winning and they really want it now.”