When it comes to the season’s goal, Langley Christian’s Mary Joan Visscher prefers to look at the journey rather than the end goal.
“We try not to look at the outcome; we always try to look at the process,” she explained.
“We will never get to the outcome if we don’t focus on what we need to do — to play together and to execute everything that we have worked on.
“So for me, I focus a lot on what is in between rather than what is at the end.”
Visscher coaches the Langley Christian Lightning Grade 8 girls volleyball team along with Laura Folkerts.
And on Tuesday afternoon, the Lightning dispatched the Credo Christian Kodiaks 3-0 to win the Langley district banner at the Langley Events Centre.
Langley Christian, the top team during league play, won the first two sets by identical 25-7 scores. The Kodiaks pushed them in the third set but the Lightning completed the sweep with a 25-19 victory.
This marked the sixth straight season the school had won the Grade 8 girls district title.
“It is obviously pretty great; pretty huge for our school to win six straight,” Visscher said.
At the start of the season, Visscher said the lone goal was to teach the team how to play together, especially since many of the players were new to one another.
“We have all worked hard and we told (the girls) each one played a part in this. They need to know that, we can’t do this alone, we need to work together,” she said.
The team did come second in a pair of tournaments.
She did single out the play of Camryn Visscher and Ember Hamilton for their all-around play as keys to the victory.
Both Langley Christian and Credo Christian advance to the Fraser Valley championships.