Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – It has been an unconventional start to the season off the court for the West High volleyball team.

That is one way to describe the past few months for the Trojans who have had a pair of interim head coaches since Keeley Arnold resigned last June.

West High senior Ava Bruxvoort had another description.

“It’s kind of been chaos,” Bruxvoort said.

After Arnold stepped down in June West High hired Ben Crusinberry as an interim head coach in July before hiring current interim head coach Ben Bahr last week.

It’s been a whirlwind off the court.

On the court the Trojans are coming together, playing together and winning.

A nine-win team a year ago West High is already well on its way to surpassing that win total this season and continued a strong start with a 25-20, 27-25, 25-18 sweep of Linn-Mar in a Mississippi Valley Conference Mississippi Division match on Tuesday at West High.

“We put all of that chaos to the side and try to play for each other,” Bruxvoort said. “When we are on the court we are just focused on one another.”

Sophomore Sophia Austen had a match-high 12 kills and Bruxvoort had 11 on Tuesday as West High rolled past the Lions in its home opener.

Senior Sophie Bodin added five kills for West High as the Trojans improved to 5-6 on the season and 2-0 in MVC matches.

“I think the big thing is early in the season we just focused on play for each other,” Austen said. “That helped us have a better mindset and we’ve taken that with us on the floor when we play.”

West High opened the season with a road sweep of Class 5A No. 15 Dubuque Senior and added a win over No. 13 Bettendorf during a 2-2 start but had lost four of six matches since.

The Trojans got back on track on their home court on Tuesday.

“I think we were more together tonight than we were even against Dubuque Senior,” Austen said. “We played great tonight I think we can keep building and building as the season goes on.”

West High snapped a 17-17 tie in the opening set with a 6-1 run that featured kills by Bruxvoort, Austen and sophomore setter Lila Eastvold.

Bruxvoort and Austen closed the opening set with back-to-back kills.

“We felt really confident in how we were going to play and the girls are focused on taking care of themselves,” said West High assistant coach Paola Jaramillo who was filling in for Bahr on Tuesday. “This is an incredible team and they have been extremely resilient.”

Linn-Mar led 18-12 In the second set before West High mounted a rally.

The Trojans used a 5-0 run that was fueled by a kill and an ace block by Austen and a kill and an ace serve from Bruxvoort to take a 19-18 lead.

“We never lost our fight,” Bruxvoort said. “When we got down in that second set we played for each other.”

West High closed out the second set win and took control of the match on back-to-back Linn-Mar hitting errors.

“We’ve really been trusting each other and we know that our good is good enough,” Austen said. “We don’t have to try too hard against other teams just play our volleyball and that will be enough.”

The third set was all West High.

The Trojans jumped to a 12-3 lead behind three early kills from Bruxvoort.

West High cruised to a 25-18 win in the third set that completed an impressive sweep.

“This is one of our best games,” Bruxvoort said. “Today we gave it our all, our coach was away today so we were really trying to play for him.”

West High finished with a 36-12 edge in kills and had eight ace serves, three each from Bruxvoort and Eastvold.

Eastvold added five kills and two ace blocks.

“I think we really showed tonight how our serving can be offensive” Austen said. “Volleyball is a serve and serve receive game and we have to win that game and I think we did that tonight.”

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