Eagles look to the future
MISSOULA, Mont. (BVM) —The Valley Christian Eagles are looking to hoist the district championship trophy that has eluded them for nearly five years. Led by head coach Annette Cross, the Eagles are hoping to make this a reality soon.
“We have a really good mixture of resiliency along with a flood of talented and hardworking young players coming in,” Cross said. “I’m really excited for the future of this program.”
The program has five incoming freshmen, one of which is Sydney Goldbar. A middle school standout with a near-perfect jump serve. Along with Goldbar, Cross is hoping that she and four other young players can help the Eagles push past the district tournament. For the last five seasons, Valley Christian has endured four first-round exits and has only made it to the second round once.
Despite their play in the tournament in recent years, Cross has been hitting on one vital theme in each of her years as a coach: resiliency. At Valley Christian, they not only believe in what they are teaching, but also the value of the impact that a well-curated and specific school environment has on the lives of young students.
“I chose the theme of resilience during my first year of coaching, at about a quarter of the way through my inaugural season,” Cross said. “At first, coaching was so different than anything I have had to do before, so I began to have doubts. [In] one game in particular, we got crushed in straight sets to our rivals Seeley Swan who was the number one team in the district at the time. It was deflating. The next practice is when I introduced this philosophy and I have been using it ever since. That same year in the district tournament we were seeded last and we had to play Seeley. We didn’t win but we played them hard and that’s when I realized that I not only got to participate in practices and games with these girls, but also in their lives.”
Also, the effects of coronavirus had on the team and the school were difficult to adjust to. Sports at first were delayed most of their season, with the volleyball team playing less than half of their scheduled games. When they were allowed to practice, masks had to be worn at all times and only a few people were allowed in the locker rooms at a time. Then at school, they had to distance, letting classes out one at a time, staggering them in order to prevent the students from coming too close. In the larger classes, they had to be broken into two different classes on the same day, for a class size of 17 or larger.
In the 2020 season, despite the difficulties presented by covid, the resilient Valley squad once again took one of the top teams in the district to their limit. This time the unfortunate recipient of their toughness was the Darby Tigers, the district’s second overall team. Once again, the Eagles showed their true colors and took them to the brink, despite losing by only one set.
“I was extremely proud of them,” Cross noted. “Despite the pandemic and every challenge we had to face to even be able to be on the court, having to distance even in practice once we were able to practice. Just everything that could go wrong went wrong, but to bounce back and fight the way they did, I could not have been happier.”
Yet despite all the strangeness and difficulties that the Valley Christian Volleyball team had to endure in order to achieve a sense of normalcy, the hope is that next year they can prove even more so what a resilient and strong-willed team they are. The philosophy of coaching employed by Coach Cross not only prepares her team for the season, but also prepares them for the difficulties and strife that they will encounter after high school as well.
