Red Devil Women’s Volleyball is on a win streak. They have now won three games in a row and have improved to a 4-3. The team is led by their trio of senior captains, Libero/Defensive Specialist Grace Coccagna ’25, Setter Willow Palmer ’25, and Middle Hitter Alexa Barowski ’25. Each senior is returning from their semesters abroad with a final chance to lead their team to the playoffs. Coccagna, who is returning from a semester in Bologna, Italy, spoke about her time abroad and the outlook for this season.

“For the three seniors abroad, we had opportunities to play with teams across the country, which was a really cool opportunity. We learned some new, different styles of play. The people in Italy play volleyball a little bit differently than what we’re used to in the U.S.,” Coccagna said. 

The captain spoke about learning new defense and communication tactics: “There’s definitely a lot of differences in communications, as well as different defensive formations that I think we have been incorporating more this past season. That will definitely be beneficial for us.” The defense so far has helped the Red Devils earn a shutout. 

Heading into her senior year, Coccagna emphasized her time in the weight room. “Going into the summer, I definitely was in the weight room almost everyday of the week, doing our summer workouts. I also played in a college pickup league, so that was good working with other Division 3 volleyball players and playing with them,” she explained. 

For a senior captain, Coccagna understood the importance of building camaraderie within her squad. “One of the biggest things I think is building relationships and trust within the team. You can’t be a good captain if your team doesn’t respect you also leading by example,” she said. “These past three seasons I have been playing, all three of the seniors now have been really big on team culture and court culture, which serves as a good role model for the other players.” 

With such a difficult conference, the team has only made the playoffs once since 2021, losing to Gettysburg in the first round of 2022. Coccagna spoke about the importance of capitalizing on the conference matches. She said that “Every single conference game is obviously very important, so really focusing on those conference matches and literally giving it 110% is necessary. Last year, our very last game, if we won, we would have made playoffs, and unfortunately it did not go our way. But, we learned a lot about that and every single rep and conference game is very, very important.”

Adding to the court culture, the importance of building that ideology starts with recruiting from bottom-to-top. “We have an amazing freshmen class, all five of them are very skilled and I think a lot of them will see a lot of court time this year. They are very eager to learn and are doing that rather quickly,” Coccagna said. So far, first year Mallie Thomas ’28 leads the team in kills with 81 and service aces with 22. Avery Butcher ’28 leads the team in digs with 122 and is second on the team with 13 service aces. The contributions from the freshmen class has certainly made the impact Coccagna was expecting. 

While the on court play has to be excellent, Coccagna also highlighted the importance of building a culture in the same aspect. “Building relationship and leading by examples, especially as a senior, everyone is looking up to you. Giving that 110% all the time is really important and people really admire and strive to follow and succeed.”

The emphasis on team communication, after each point the team meets in a huddle to discuss the last and next play. “I think that’s one of the most important aspects of volleyball because plays are so fast, if you don’t communicate on what you did good and need to improve on, then it’s difficult to grow together as a team,” the senior captain added. 

The team has picked the right time to find their groove wiith conference play nearing.