Following last year's 6-12 record, Liberty's volleyball team is ready to reverse that blip in Neid Ammary's tenure as head coach and compete in this year's East Penn Conference.

With plenty of returning players and some transfers from Bethlehem Catholic, Liberty should be on their way to competing for a spot in the district and league postseason.

"We expect to be much more competitive than we were last season," Ammary said. "We return a lot of players and we trained hard in the off-season, so we feel that we can compete for divisional, league, and district titles."

Back in the fold for Liberty include setter Jake Gallagher, right side hitter Ryan McGuire, middle hitter Brett Bosak, outside hitter Logan Priestas, outside hitter David Strohl and libero Luke Alexy.

Outside hitter Grady Hackett and middle hitter Andrew Hudak are two transfers from Becahi that figure to pay dividends, especially Hudak, who was the center for the basketball team and gives Liberty a huge presence in the middle.

Setter Samwel Omwega also figures into the team's plans.

Figuring out how to operate with all the pieces Ammary has at his disposal will be the biggest task for the 11th year head coach.

"Because we have so much depth, we will have to experiment a little bit to find our best lineup," he said. "Although we are more experienced than last year's squad, the majority of our players are still juniors, so we may struggle with consistency."

Parkland, Emmaus and Whitehall figure to lead the charge in the league again this year, but Liberty hopes they can be one of those surprise teams in the mix.

"Last year was the worst in my tenure here, but we gained a lot of valuable experience and continued to train hard in the offseason," said Ammary. "Our players had the humility and ambition to invest their time and energy in our offseason program, and that has made us much more competitive for this season."