The success of the boys’ volleyball team can be traced back to their strong players.

The girl’s volleyball team at Westminster has always been one of the most successful sports programs at the school, winning a total of 11 district championships in the program’s lifetime.  Just this past year, the Lady Wildcats finished the season with an impressive year.  They finished the season second in the division, at 26-9-1 overall, a superb record once again.

The boys’ volleyball team, however, has not been blessed with quite as much success as the girl’s team in recent years.  This year, however, the team is trying to break away from the shadow of the girl’s team, and the team is off to a solid start so far.

“We’re doing pretty good.  We probably should have beat some teams that we lost to, but for the most part, we’re doing good,” said Gordon Younkin, junior on the varsity team.

The team is getting a lot of needed energy from Coach Jean Evans, who is back with the team after a short hiatus last year.  Evans was unable to coach last year because of a league rule, but has returned to help a program in need.

“She always encourages us and helps us get better,” said Younkin.

Several outstanding servers, including two seniors, Matt Baldwin and Sang-A Park, who have been main cogs on the team thus far serving the ball, lead the team.  Baldwin leads the team in points off of serves with 39, and has contributed a very solid 88.52 percent success rate.  Park is second on the team in serve percentage with a 93.24.  The leader in serve percentage on the team is Younkin, however, with a 95.51%.  

“We work together pretty well.  We don’t have one person who is super important,” said Younkin.

However, Daniel Moore, senior, has been the most effective person when it comes to scoring points.  He overwhelmingly leads the team in attacks and kills.  Moore has 323 attacks so far this year to go along with a total of 108 kills, averaging 2.92 kills a game.  

“He has gotten a lot of kills.  I can always set him and he’ll get it over,” said Younkin.

However, the most impressive single statistic owned on the entire team is owned by Younkin.  Younkin has a whopping total of 234 assists this year.  To put that number in perspective, the rest of the team has only 20 assists.  He has all of those assists because he is the setter on the team, and very important to the team’s success.

“I try to set the people who are having a good game, and I also try to mix up my sets so the other team doesn’t know,” said Younkin.  

With many senior contributors on the team, some are worried about a drop off in production from this year to last year.  Six seniors are leaving next year, but the under classmen are excited to step up.

“We’re losing a lot of seniors, so it should be tough next year.  But the guys on JV are looking good, so we should be fine,” said Younkin.