When El Dorado Springs plays volleyball, two names show up a lot on the stat sheet.
“They’re our driving force, they’re our motivators and they run our offense,” said Head Coach Ashley Rogers.
A pair of sophomores gives the Bulldogs a one-two punch.
Tevi Gurley and Reese Schaaf rank 1-2 on the team in kills and assists, while also being team leaders on and off the court.
“They know where they are on the floor whether they’re talking or not,” Rogers said.
Tevi says it’s something they can’t always explain.
“She [Reese] likes to say ‘yeah yeah yeah’ a lot, but most [of the time] I don’t really know where she’s at, I just kind of set it and she gets a hold of it somehow,” Tevi said.
“I love shouting on the court, it’s my favorite thing, just to be loud for everybody to hear me really,” Reese said.
The passion behind that shouting sometimes makes for tense moments.
“They do yell a lot, at each other sometimes, but they can come back the next play and they’re right back to where they were,” Rogers said.
That shows in the numbers.
In Tevi and Reese’s two season on the team, El Do has 56 wins and just 11 losses. That success follows three straight losing seasons before their freshman year.
“Even last year they would do something and I would think ‘oh that’s never going to work,’ and then it would just work,” Rogers said.
That’s just how it goes with this duo, which gives the Bulldogs hope of building on last year’s loss in the state quarterfinals.
“That’s been our driving force this year,” Rogers said. “Our motto is just one more. Give me one more pass, one more kill, one more set.”
It’s one more chance for Tevi and Reese to do what they do best.
“If we don’t go to state this year, I really hope we go the next two years,” Tevi said.
“We’re going all the way. I feel it,” Reese said.
With these two leading the way, who could argue with their chances.
