Students are reviving the women’s club volleyball team, holding informal practices with the goal of competing next school year, according to sophomore and club co-president Julia Caspar.

Hillsdale had an active club volleyball team until 2020, but engagement slowly died out until a group of women decided to hold a more consistent practice schedule and compete in a tournament last spring, Caspar said. Although the team has not been able to go to a tournament this school year, it plans to compete more in the fall.

“We meet twice a week for practices throughout most of the year,” Caspar said. “They’re more like open gyms, just very informal practices where we do lots of different drills. It’s usually twice a week — Monday and Wednesday nights — and then our goal is to have a couple of tournaments to go to to compete each semester.”

Club volleyball practices on Court 2 in the Sport Complex on Mondays from 7 to 8:30 p.m. and Wednesdays from 8:30 to 10 p.m., according to Caspar. Since a lot of college teams have their regular seasons in the fall, the club volleyball team likes to take advantage of the open gym space in the spring.

“Last spring, we went and played a tournament at Siena Heights, which is a local college, and we played against some other club teams, and also some various collegiate junior varsity teams,” Caspar said. “We’re kind of hoping to have some tournaments to go to every semester.”

Practices typically consist of a warm up and drills that cover skills such as serving, hitting, and passing drills, and ends with a game such as Queen of the Court, according to sophomore Maggie Schaer.

“We welcome anyone with any level of volleyball experience,” Schaer said. “So if you’ve never played before, or if it was your sport in high school, it’s a great place to learn and grow and make some new friends.”

Schaer said she has been playing volleyball since she was in elementary school.

“Volleyball is my favorite sport, and the chance to play with girls from Hillsdale seemed like a wonderful opportunity to keep playing and meet some new people,” Schaer said.

Sophomore and club co-president Ava Caggiano said she likes to play club volleyball for the competitive and social aspects.

“All levels of experience are welcome,” Caggiano said. “It’s mostly full of people who have played in high school or had some experience with it in high school and really enjoyed it, and just want to keep doing it because it’s fun and they enjoy the competition.”