In Class C schools, it’s not uncommon for freshmen to be on varsity. However, it’s not very often that you see three freshman, who are not only on varsity, but are starting varsity.

The Charlo Vikings volleyball team isn’t short on girls. They’re not short on talent either. The team has only lost one match this season. With over 25 girls, the fact that three freshmen are starting varsity is even more impressive.

 The first thing you notice about the team is how scrappy they are. They only have one girl, Ashley Tryon, who is over 5’8”. They rely on tough defense and some serious athleticism to win their games. You don’t realize that three freshmen and a sophomore make up half of their team.

 Kaitlin Cox might be 5’6” with boots on, even though the roster says otherwise. The outgoing freshman plays all the way around the rotation, and has a deadly serve, along with a killer spike that looks like it should come from a much bigger person.

 Teaira Truman is in the same boat as Cox, with a tough serve and nice vertical. The two are sometimes hard to tell apart on the court. Truman also does well in the back row, and goes a little more under the radar than Cox, but contributes just as much.

 Allie Delaney might go even more under the radar than the other two, but she shouldn’t be unheard of by anyone. Just her last name tells a fan that she’s probably athletic. She has three older brothers who are all great athletes. She plays libero, although her coach says she has one of the highest verticals on the team.

 That coach, Cammie Evenson, is in her first year at Charlo. She didn’t know any of the girls when she came to the Mission Valley. She’s originally from Richey, another small town on the other side of the state. When she started practice, she said she didn’t want to know what happened last year. “I started my practice out and said ‘I don’t want to know your age or what class you’re in, I don’t want to know about anything that happened last year.’ So it’s been a new year, a new program,” she said.

 As far as the maturity level for 14 and 15-year-olds playing with 18-year-olds, Evenson said she doesn’t think it’s been an issue. Confidence levels haven’t been an issue either. “I think they have so much support from girls like Mikaylan [Roylance], Cheyenne [Nagy], and Ashley [Tryon]. I’ve explained to these girls, ‘there’s six girls on the floor, so the game isn’t on anybody. The game is never on one of you. So there is no reason to be nervous. You have five other people out there who are always playing with you.’ And I think that has helped a lot with those girls to understand that’s what volleyball is about.”

 Evenson explained part of the reason she has three freshmen starting. “When I look at players… number one, in volleyball, if you’re an athletic girl who can jump and get up, that’s a huge part of being able to play varsity. Those girls came out and made it very obvious that they could put the ball away.”

 For Cox and Truman, being aggressive hasn’t been an issue. Evenson said both have become more aggressive as the season has pregressed. “We have to be so smart with the ball. That’s why maybe it seems like we tip the ball a lot, but they tip when it’s not right. When they don’t think they are in the right position, they know. They are very smart.”

 Delaney is okay with her job as libero, even though it took a few games to get the hang of it. “I had no idea what I was doing at first,” she said. She added that her teammates have helped her to become a better player.  “They have all been really supportive and encouraging.”

“Allie is one of our best athletes,” Evenson said. “You have to be quick to get to that ball, and we don’t have much height this year, so we have to be so good at defense. So I decided to take one of our most athletic girls and put her there because that’s what we need.”

 None of the girls thought for a second going into the year that they would be starting varsity. “My brother has been calling me C-Squad all summer,” Delaney said with a laugh, “I was expecting JV if I was lucky.”

 That’s not to say that the three girls haven’t been preparing for their first high school sport. 

All three of them have been participating in open gyms during summers.

 Kaitlin Cox said she focuses a lot on volleyball, which is her favorite sport. She said she has been spending a lot of time at open gyms, and was glad to be placed on varsity. “I was happy that my hard work had paid off,” she said. It has become clear in recent weeks that Cox has put extra work in, as she has piled up 35 kills and nine aces, just in the past week.

 Truman said she has put in extra work as well. “Kaitlin and I have come in with our older siblings. We all played together during junior high and we knew it was going to be a lot harder,” she said. She added that she didn’t think she would be on varsity. “I was mostly shocked, but I knew our coach had confidence in us and so did the other girls.”

 Those other girls are returners like seniors Mikaylan Roylance and Jaycee Andersen, along with junior Cheyenne Nagy, who all had good things to say about their younger teammates. Roylance, the varsity setter and all-around athlete, said the girls have risen to the occasion. “At first you could tell they were nervous, but they have gotten a lot better,” she said. As far as varsity being for older girls, Roylance said, “I don’t think varsity is necessarily just a senior sport. I think varsity is for whoever has the right skill set, and these girls have proved that they have the talent to play at the varsity level.”

 Andersen added, “They don’t have as much experience, so when they mess up it’s a little harder to keep their spirits up, but they’ve earned their spots, and work really hard in practice.” Nagy backed that statement up, and said that she doesn’t notice them being freshman. “Most of the time you don’t even realize they are younger,” she said.

 Cox, Delaney and Truman have known each other since kindergarten, and have played sports together throughout junior high. That doesn’t hurt when they are all three on the floor at one time. Cox said playing with the other two so recently has made it easier for them to communicate.

 All three agree that high school volleyball has been way more intense than they were used to in junior high, but at this point in the season, it seem like the nerves have worn off.

 While there has been speculation about whether or not it’s fair that three freshmen are starting, all three of the freshmen and the older girls said that their coach didn’t choose the team by age.

 As the season progresses, Cox, Delaney and Truman continue to improve, and no matter their age, their hard work both during the season and in the summer has contributed to the team, and have earned them recognition for their efforts.