MIDLAND, Texas — High school and college volleyball season here in the Permian Basin may be a few months away, but one team made up of girls age 12 and under from the Midland-Odessa area has been tearing it up on the court lately.
Now they'll be rewarded with a trip to Minneapolis, Minnesota for Nationals.
In addition, this Nitro Volleyball team is a nonprofit, so they'll need to raise some money to help them on their journey hundreds of miles north.
"We're really excited to represent Sun Country at the USAV Girls Junior National Championship," said team captain Isabella. "It's been really, really fun. It's probably been one of the best teams I've ever been on and I'm really excited to go to Nationals, and overall, I'm just happy on our team with how successful we've been, and it's been great."
"It's been very special for me," said head coach Kayla Schear. "This is my first year with this team. This is the first year together. They show up every day to practice with heart, and as a coach, you can't coach heart into the game. It's there. I can teach the players what to do, but they choose to show up every day with a heart to get better and improve the game. It's not just about the game. I think it's about them being there for each other also getting better to help the team and not more individual."
"She's helped us a lot, and she's just been very real with us," said team captain Paisley. "I'm very excited, and I'm just excited as a team that we get to play together against teams from all over the nation."
"We have quite a few sponsorship ideas," said Schear. "Companies will be able to purchase an advertising logo or honorable mention for some kind of profit packages, and we'll put that on a T-shirt and sell T-shirts. There was talk of a golf tournament. Keep Midland Beautiful, the girls are going to go through the city also and volunteer some of their time in exchange for raising money also for different costs incurred for going to Nationals."
"Our favorite part was when we got a bid to Nationals," said Isabella. "It was really exciting at the moment because we didn't know, and coach surprised us. So that was really exciting."
"My favorite part was beating the Pistols in Lubbock," said Paisley. "We're just really excited to get this opportunity to learn and grow."
Nitro Volleyball will head to Minnesota on June 14-17 for Nationals, and if you'd like more information about how you can help these girls out financially, click or tap the link here.