Emma Albertie is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Phoenix Country Day Scool for AZPreps365.com

Phoenix Country Day School girls’ volleyball team fell to Trivium Prep in the 2A Girls’ Volleyball State Finals on Friday morning.

It was a straight-set loss as Trivium Prep won 25-17, 32-30 and 25-22.

Not all was lost on Friday as Phoenix Country Day was awarded the AIA Sportsmanship Award.

“It's honestly a really crazy feeling, after every point we come together as a team to support one another,” said PCDS’ Mia Warner, “but not only ourselves, but the other team too. This is a team sport.”

Quincy Rodin, PCDS’ captain, echoed Warner: “The game is just being respectful to each other no matter who wins, who loses. It's just sports (it) isn't about being rude to each other, so we really value picking each other up no matter what team they're on.”

Phoenix Country Day hadn’t lost since Sept. 23. The Eagles ended the season 23-3 overall.

“We work hard and pay attention to detail,” said Eagles head coach Kat Glaeseman, on how they made it as far as the state finals. “We didn't have much time to prepare (for this game). We just found out who we were playing (Thursday night), so we had a little practice this morning and talked about what the other team did.”
 

After falling in the first set, PCDS had a huge lead of 21-11 in the second, but eventually lost its groove. Trivium came back and was able to tie the set 22-22. After a series of back-and-forth points, PCDS fell, 32-30.

After the last point of the second set was played, PCDS called for a challenge, but the point ended up going to Trivium.

The Eagles took a good mindset into the third set, that just because they were down it wasn’t over.

“The game’s not over, volleyball is a long game” Rodin said of the team’s feeling. “The whole time we make sure we're pushing and going for everything.”

After being significantly down in the third set, the Eagles rallied to win seven consecutive points, making it 24-22, before it eventually lost.

Season over. The PCDS girls are so proud of themselves for making it this far.

“At the beginning of the season,” Warner said, “we all just played for ourselves, and then towards the end of the regular season we learned to play together and to play for each other.”

They said with this season over, they will start to think about next year.