Volleyball is one of the newest sports at Stratford. The first season began in 2010 and featured only scrimmage games.

Now, it has developed into a major sport for girls. The past seven years have brought a 20-win season, an area championship, and state qualifications every year in the Georgia High School Association.

This year’s team recently finished with a 12-19 record.

Coach Rachel Chabot attributes the non-winning season to a young team and not having played much as a group.

“We’re having a little bit of an up-and-down season because we are a team that has not played together very much,’’ Coach Chabot said.

The team pulled things together towards the end and made it into the state tournament after beating Aquinas in the area tournament.

“We went in to the region tournament as  fourth (seed), but we came out third because we beat Aquinas,’’ said senior Sydney Rouleau, a team captain.

Winning in the area tournament qualified the team to enter the state tournament, but the Eaglettes lost in the first round to Wesleyan. Still, the players felt good about their season overall.

Margot Hannan, another senior and team captain, said  the season went “pretty well, we were new with eight underclassmen,” and that the team still “started out strong,” winning its first three games.

Sydney and Margot also pointed out that the team had all new setters, which is a very hard position to fill.

The two seniors said they will miss volleyball.

“I’ll miss the team aspect of it,” Margo said.

“I’ll miss the team, the bus rides, and Smashburger,’’ Sydney said.

They also said that they both plan to play in college at the club or intramural level.

They believe the future is bright for Stratford’s volleyball program.

“(Freshman) Harmony (Nagle) will be really good as a senior, she has a lot of power,” Sydney said.  Margo added that Kaitlyn Neel will probably be team captain next year.