North Star

Junior Lucy St. John is playing on softball varsity for
her second year. The junior will play anywhere she is
needed but she is in on field most of the time. (Photo
by Jordyn Sgroi)
REFLECTING ON
THE SEASON
Juniors Emille Miller and Sophia Gabel attempt to block the ball from Liberty High School on Oct. 9. This is
Miller and Gabel’s first year playing on varsity. During their sophmore year, the two juniors played on the JV team
together. (Photo by Ella Manthey).
SETTING THE SCORE
The varsity volleyball team played their final away game on Oct. 24 against
St. Charles High School and look back at this year’s season
by Mollie Roberts
msroberts6536@gmail.com
When the 2019 FHN girls varsity volleyball
season came to an end, there were mixed
emotions from both new and returning
players. For many of the girls, it was their final season
playing volleyball especially since five players on the
team were seniors.
“Since being a senior, I think the thing I am going
to miss most is getting to spend everyday with my
closest friends that I would
not have made if I didn’t play
volleyball,” Kylie Schaffer
said, who has been playing
on the varsity team since her
sophomore year. “Even though
I am going to be playing in
college it won’t be the same
playing without my girls from
high school.”
Many new players joined the team this season,
including sophomore Ella Bargen who moved up
from the freshman team to varsity in one year. She
attributes this success to playing club volleyball
during the winter. Many girls play club volleyball
during the off season to keep up with their skills and
prepare for the fall season.
“It was a very big jump from the freshman team
Varsity Girls
Volleyball Stats
Wins: 14
Losses: 15
Ties: 1
to varsity and a bit scary because the girls were
much taller and hit a lot harder, but I was ready
because I always used to talk about being varsity
when I was younger,” Bargen said. “I trained really
hard by playing club volleyball and by doing clinic
and camps. I worked on things I struggled with and I
mastered them. Just in this season alone I improved
by knowing how to read the ball not only by seeing
where she was hitting by how the hitter was hitting.”
Junior Cate Hahn was another new player who
moved up from JV to varsity. Throughout
the season she developed her skills and
eventually won All Tournament team
at both the St. Charles High School
Tournament and the Lutheran St.
Charles Tournament. Hahn has been
playing volleyball since her freshman
year and has played for all three teams;
freshman, JV and varsity.
“My favorite game was when we played
Lutheran High in the championship game of their
tournament, because it was the best we have ever
played and although we didn’t win we played for
each other to reach a common goal,” Hahn said. “I
hope that next year we are still able to play for each
other, not individually, and although we are losing
our seniors, we can keep the team unity that we
developed this year since it is so strong.”
The Knights softball team started competing in
their first game of districts on Oct. 16. They were
ranked as the number five seed and played Fort
Zumwalt North, who had the number four seed,
and the Knights defeated them 13-3.
“We played pretty well so we were pretty
excited to play the next day at Francis Howell
Central who had the number one seed,” head
coach Mike Freedline said. “They had already
beat us three times this year so we knew it was
going to be a tough game.”
Francis Howell North played Francis Howell
Central on Thursday and started off the game
well, but then had a couple errors, gained
unearned runs and eventually lost 0-10. For
next year the Knights have high hopes and
expectations.
“We’ll be changing conferences, so going into
the new conference our goal next year is to win
the conference as we come into it next year,”
Freedline said. “Our seniors led the team real
well, and everybody stepped up and improved
from the year before, so they all did a pretty
good job.”
Last season, the Knights had six starting
sophomores and were a young team. The
Knights will be losing seniors such as Adria
Schmidt, who led the Knights with 36 hits
and two RBIs. Next year, the Knights will have
several returning members, such as junior Becka
Brissette and freshman Lucy Fajatin who led the
team in home runs.
“This season we ended up having a lot more
upperclassmen since we were such a young
team last year and we ended up getting farther
into districts this year,” junior Becka Brissette
said. “We want to win conference next year, we
changed conferences and we want to ended up
winning and go farther in districts, and I want to
hit better and get my stats up.” (Story by Parker
Kilen)
PAGE BY JUSTIN BREWER
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