URBANDALE, Iowa — Tutus, tiaras, Spongebob, Captain Underpants and an alien.
Thursday’s practice didn’t necessarily look like a volleyball practice, but on your second take, these are the Urbandale J-Hawks.
“They’re pretty creative kids,” said Head Coach Liz Baethke.
“We are really just trying to enjoy the last like week, two weeks of volleyball,” said senior Meredith Hews.
So, in honor of Halloween...
“We just thought costume practice would be really fun,” Hews said.
This, all while Coach Baethke is making sure her team is keeping its focus on the state tournament next week.
“It’s because she knows that we can still come to practice and be able to focus even when we’re dressed up like this, and it just makes it a fun experience,” Riley Peters said.
There’s that word again: fun. Admittedly, that’s the biggest thing for these J-Hawks.
“Fun is something we talk about every day before every competition because I think without that you’re missing the biggest piece of the puzzle," Baethke said. "If you’re not having fun then it’s not going to come together.”
Urbandale has come together all season long with that fun as fuel, and it showed up in their regional final.
“If you look at our last week’s game, we were down 4-13 in the first set and came back and won that game ... we were able to form our own energy, we were able to pick it up and get those points back,” said junior Lily Dykstra.
They’ll have to do that again Monday when they make their first appearance at State since 2017. The nine seniors on this team were just eighth-graders back then.
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“I went to the state tournament and it was just crazy the energy in the arena it was just insane,” Peters said.
Now amplify that even more for them as players.
“I think it will just consume us, it will be so great to see all of the people there all of the fans for both sides and it will just be so exciting,” Hews added.
Their first-round foe is the defending champ Ankeny. Urbandale will go in as the underdog.
“I expect them to come out and expect to beat us,” Peters said.
So, for the J-Hawks, just stick to what they do best: have fun and see what shakes out.
“I don’t think it’s anything we can’t handle," Dystra said. "We’ve seen them twice this season. We know how they play, so I think we’re prepared. I think it will be a good match could go either way.”