Liberty’s volleyball season has come to an end, but the building blocks may be in place for continued growth moving further.

The Hurricanes (8-9) were swept by Parkland in last Thursday’s District 11 3A opener, taking the three games 25-22, 25-8, 25-16.

Having the season end to Parkland wasn’t the biggest surprise, as the second-seeded Trojans are perennially one of the top three programs in the area.

Coming into the year with a young team was always going to be a difficult task for head coach Mike Zile, but he was happy with what the program was able to accomplish, especially with all the uncertainty with COVID coming into the season.

“All in all I think we had a successful season,” Zile said. “Coming into the season there were more unknowns than we have ever had going into a season. Usually we have opportunities for open gyms in the fall and winter and Liberty has historically competed in club tournaments during the offseason. We only had open gyms the three Sundays leading up to the preseason and we did not have our usual offseason club team. Only a few players played club volleyball and our only in person interaction was having weight room sessions. We only knew about the teams in the league from the few players that played on teams with them during the winter. It was hard to stay engaged with players and we were lucky to get a good draw of interest mainly through word of mouth from existing players encouraging new players to come out.”

This year’s group might have been one of the youngest Liberty teams to qualify for districts, with two freshmen and two sophomores sharing the court at a given time.

However, seniors Brandon Achey and Joey Rachwal will be sorely missed as they move on.

“They are key losses because they have the all around skills with passing, hitting, and blocking with several years of experience apiece,” said Zile. “ It’ll be hard to make up losing 14+ years of experience between two players. The great thing about this season is that we had a roster of 22. We will have 20 players returning (four juniors, seven sophomores, and nine freshmen). Coach Victor did a great job of managing getting up to 18 players quality reps in JV. The majority of the players were first year players.”

The hope for next year is to improve off this year’s results and gain more experience for the team in the offseason.

“The goal for the offseason will be to get quality touches and reps,” Zile said. “Grass doubles is an important part of developing the all around skills. Many of our players will be doing that. We have them on a summer league team and will look to get back to doing offseason open gyms and trying to get the Hurricane club to play again.

“This season will be a building block for everyone. It will help us know how to raise the bar for 2022.”