Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Ellie Evans knows all about the long-standing tradition of volleyball success at City High.

Evans and her senior teammates just haven’t gotten to experience that success first-hand the past several seasons.

Led by the likes of Evans and Mackenzie Murphy the Little Hawks plan to change that this fall.  

“It has definitely been below what we are satisfied with,” Evans said of previous few seasons. “The last couple years obviously are not what we are shooting for so that’s why I am excited for this season because I definitely think we can come out with bigger things.”

City High established itself as on of the premier programs in the state in the early 2000s.

That success continued as the Little Hawks reached the state tournament three times from 2011 to 2014 while averaging 28 wins per season.

Over the past three years the win totals have dropped.

The Little Hawks have missed the state tournament each of the past three seasons and averaged 17 wins a year during the drought.

“It’s been tough at times,” Murphy said. “We know what the expectations are here. We’ve been alright but that’s not the goal here.”

Despite coming off a rare sub-.500 season a year ago that ended with a 16-17 record excitement and expectations are higher than any point over the past four seasons.

City High returns virtually every contributor from last years team including every player that made a start.

“We have everyone back this year, we are super excited and we are hungry,” Murphy said. “We are really excited and we are working hard.”

Returning a roster loaded with experience is beneficial for any team.

For City High the returning experience became even more important as the Little Hawks dealt with a late coaching change.

It was announced last month that assistant coach Tricia Carty would replace head coach Craig Pitcher on a one-year interim basis as the state reviews out-of-season training coordinated by Pitcher.

An experienced roster has been a benefit as City High navigates the coaching change.

“They know a lot of the expectations that we have at City High volleyball, the core values of our program haven’t changed we are just continuing to build,” Carty said. “That is helping. They aren’t learning an entirely new system, an entirely new expectation of how we are going to operate so we can focus on lots of the other pieces in developing some confidence and stability without adjusting to everything being new.”

City High is more than just experienced, the Little Hawks are talented.

Four players that recorded more than 100 kills a year ago return led by a trio of 5-foot-11 hitters in Kelsey Law (224), Murphy (173) and Evans (169).

“I think we are really motivated to do better this season,” Law said. “We all know how last season went and we have talked a lot about being a team and working on goals this season and the mental aspect of the game and I think that’s going to help us a lot more this season.”

Junior setter Lindsey Bolton returns with a year of experience under her belt while fellow juniors Brooke Bormann, CeCelia Aldrich-Ingram and Mia Loughran are all back with starting experience.

“We are coming in with a different baseline of expectations where we are going to build and we are going to expect to push ourselves and challenge ourselves more so than last year when we were still doing a lot of learning,” Carty said. “Now that the expectation has been established we are pushing ourselves and challenging ourselves.”