The Manhattan High freshman volleyball team won two out of three games during the first match of their high school career.

“We each had a specific role we needed to play and everyone played their position and we finished with a win,” Hayley Hastings, freshman, said.

Manhattan was visited by Washburn, Emporia and Seamen’s freshmen volleyball teams for the scheduled quad — when four teams meet to play against each other. After the warm up, which consisted of serving, stretching and a few exercises, the team started out strong, winning their first set — a set is 25 points and there are usually two of them per match.

The first set finished with MHS scoring 25-16. The second set had two timeouts, with each team contributing to one of those timeouts. MHS hit a little bump in the road when there was a confusion with the rotation order. However, it was quickly sorted out and the players recovered to win the second set 28-26, this time only surpassing the opposing team by the minimum two points. In winning both consecutive sets, they also won the match.

During the second match, against Seamen, the referees decided to enlist line judges — people, usually from the crowd, who lend an extra pair of eyes to decide if a ball is “in” or “out.” MHS won both sets.

“I feel we did pretty good, considering it was our first games as a team, we communicated well and played until the end of each game,” Heidi Hansen, freshmen, said.

The last match, against Emporia, started out with a little difficulty. MHS ended up winning the first set but losing the second. In order to settle the match with a clear winner, the teams played a third set, which ultimately ended with Emporia as the winner.

As the quad ended, the MHS freshman team finished with two wins against Washburn and Seamen 2-0 sets, and losing to Emporia 1-2.

“There are some things we still need to work on like talking and moving our feet more but other than that I really am hopeful and I think this will be a great season,” Amy Joo, freshman, said.

This online exclusive story is written as an assignment for 21st Century Journalism, Manhattan High’s introductory journalism class.