Liberal Spikers Look for More

The Liberal volleyball program has achieved a level of consistency the past three years. Liberal was 29-12 last year and went 32-7 and 31-5 the previous two years. Fifth year head coach Hugo Cano is looking for even more this year. Liberal returns juniors Katy Burnett, Caitlin Bauer, and Ashlyn Westerman from last year’s state tournament team. “The fact that we have three returners from last season helps the team,” Cano said. “They’ve done really well as far as bringing up everybody else in talking with them and setting the bar where it needs to be so we can be successful.”

Ashlyn Westerman says they are trying to help the inexperienced players. “With a lot of the past experience we’ve had playing together and the experience at state last year, I think we can pass a lot of things on to our teamates.”

Liberal isn’t blessed with the type of size compared to some of the teams they saw at state last year. But Katy Burnett says it doesn’t matter. “It’s not all about heighth,” Burnett said. “We’re kind of shrimpy but we have so many workouts to get us to the next level in jumping and anything else. We can hit line or whatever we need to do to get to that next level.”

Caitlin Bauer takes pride in the team’s defense. “We have a rule,” Bauer said. “We don’t want to let any ball drop on our side. We will hustle for everything and we hate losing. We are horrible losers.”

The rest of the LHS varsity consists of junior Destiny Hall, junior Lakeria Eatmon, senior Mercadie Werner, sophomore Emily Bayouth, freshman Riley Hay, and freshman Cynthia Cisneros.

Liberal plays at Southwestern Heights Tuesday night at 6:00 PM. Heights went 36-5 last year.