With one final kill, the Trojan volleyball team beat Liberty 25-17 in their fourth set, finishing the game 3-1 on Oct. 28. This win crowned the team as 2025 state championship qualifiers for the first time since 2016, and they’ll head to X-Stream Arena on Nov. 27 to duke it out for the state champion title.
“We played amazing, and it’s always great to beat a rival. Every practice, we work towards…getting to state and state championships, so that’s what we did,” libero Izzie McDonald ’28 said.
The game kicked off with a back-and-forth, ending in a tie at 5-5, after which West pulled ahead to 14-8. Liberty called its first timeout of the night when they were losing 18-12, finding the motivation to catch up to 19-16, West. However, the Trojans didn’t let up, putting the first set in the books 25-19.
The second set started with a similar point-for-point battle, tying at 4-4 and 9-9. Yet again, West drove forward, pushing Liberty to call both of their timeouts at 14-11 and 19-13. Though the Bolts crept up to trail only three points behind at 23-20, after a quick timeout, West won the second set 25-22.
The third set was even closer, with constant side-outs until West called a timeout when they were falling behind 9-5. After a kill from outside hitter Cyan Blommer ’29 and an ace from setter Lila Eastvold ’27, the Trojans started to come back, but not for long. After Liberty called its two timeouts at 12-9 and 19-18, the Bolts took control, winning the third set 25-22.
After the team talked in between sets, the Trojans started the fourth set swinging. Liberty called timeouts at 10-6 and 19-15, West’s lead. However, West didn’t stop, going on to finish the match by winning the set 25-17.
“I’m in shock. I think we’ve been working our butts off every single day in practice,” team captain and outside hitter Sophia Austen ’27 said.
“We’ve really been working on our blocking and our serve receive, and that was really prevalent in the first two sets. We kind of let up in the third, but then we picked it back up in the fourth with that serve receive,” head coach Jaedynn Evans said. “We’re going to continue to work on that serve receive, more blocking and probably a lot of serving.”
“I feel like we’ve just been really motivated in practice. We’ve been working on things that we need to improve on,” Eastvold said.
The last time the team qualified for state was in 2016, although their run was cut short. The last time the team won the state championship was in 2010 and 2011, when the team won state back-to-back in honor of deceased setter Caroline Found. “2011 was the last time we won. It was 2011 with that miracle season. It feels so great,” Evans said.
The team will head to the state championship on Monday, Nov. 3, to play the Ankeny Centennial Jaguars at 12:25 p.m. at Xtream Arena. “Be there Monday, you can get out of school. Be at X-Stream, it’s not that expensive, and watch us go to the semifinals,” Austen said.
“This has been their dream and their goal since day one, even over the summer, I asked them what it was, and they said we’re winning state. So check one was conference champs, check two was making it to state. Box number three is up for what comes next,” Evans said.
