As this year’s volleyball season progresses, 4A Desert Sky leader Arcadia continues to sweep its opponents. The Titans' latest win was against Mesquite High School, 3-0 match on Thursday.

With Mesquite ranked second behind Arcadia in the region, the Titans stood up against the competition with full force showing clear confidence throughout the first set. Great defense and blocking by senior offensive hitter Zoe Leonard along with the rest of the team led them to dominate the set, 25-13, with little to no errors in between

“Today's match was good. We played good, we fought hard, we got back up when we were down. I mean, we played a pretty good match today,” Leonard said.

In the following set, the Titans were met with the Wildcats' fierce kills, leading them to trail 11-4 early on. As the team had multiple errors, the direction of the outcome of the game seemed to be shifting, until head coach Jackie Bunker took her first timeout of the game.

“We talked about what they were doing offensively so that we could react a little bit better. And then we made sure that we slowed the tempo of our offense down just to give our hitters some more time and space that are on the ball,” Bunker said.

Following the timeout, Arcadia’s momentum swung back into their favor with the help of senior offensive hitter Ryan Sheedy. The Titans eventually took advantage of the Wildcat’s errors and won the second set, 25-19. 

“I felt like our team just really wants it and all of us are very competitive, so I knew kind of going in that whatever was gonna happen, I knew that we were gonna come out and win,” Sheedy said.

The third set began with Arcadia taking a 5-1 lead, solidifying their presence early on. However, with great defensive plays, Mesquite was able to trail closely behind for the majority of the set. It wasn’t until the Titans took a timeout as the score started to even at 17-15, when senior setter Tatum Longnecker and Leonard worked their powerful setter-hitter duo to seal the game, 25-19.

“I thought at first, that we were really clean. I thought we got a little bit messy during sets two and three, but we cleaned it up and we stayed composed and were able to finish, so I'm proud of how we ended the game,” Bunker said.

As the team takes time to recover and prepare for playoffs, the Titans are currently sitting at fifth in the state, according to the rankings. Leonard expressed that during this time they will continue working hard in practice and “do their jobs” to help get them in a great position to win the state championship.