Junior Alana Keepes has been playing volleyball for nine years now and wants to keep playing as long as she can. She was inspired to pick up the sport in third grade by her sister, Olivia. She saw how much fun her sister was having with the sport and wanted to join in. 

“I like being competitive,” Keepes said, so sports came naturally to her. Playing club meant being matched up against people of similar skill levels from a variety of schools, giving Keepes a taste of the competitive sport she loves. 

When Keepes came to La Salle, she had been playing volleyball for six years already and was ready for faster-paced games. However, high school volleyball was a lot different than what she expected. Instead of competing with groups from all over the place, their team would only play against nearby schools based on school size and the skill level of all sports teams of the school.

Keepes also plans on following her sister’s legacy by wearing the #3 jersey on varsity for all four years of playing for La Salle. Currently, she is in her third year of this tradition and intends to do so again as a senior.

According to her, the varsity team is less like a team and more “like a small family.” To her, practice, riding buses to games together, and communication are all factors that bring them closer together, especially with the common trait of being passionate about their sport.

On top of already being a cut sport, varsity accepts 12-14 players each year out of around 60 who try out, Keepes estimates, so “you have to kind of prove that you want to be there, [and] prove that you should be there,” Keepes said.

At the end of a match against another school, although it’s competitive, it’s also fun for the players. Win or lose, putting up a good match is crucial for Keepes.

“It always feels great to win, everybody knows that, everybody wants to win,” Keepes said. However, “I feel like you should walk off the court with the same amount of pride as you do if you win as if you lose good.”

For the future, Keepes wants to keep playing volleyball as long as she can. She knows it will get more difficult in college when schools are larger and not only is there more competition, but physical attributes matter more. 

“My parents have always told me that ‘school has to come first,’ and I respect that completely, but I think volleyball is the most important thing to me,” she said. 

Yet even with the hurdles coming on the horizon, Keepes wants to play for as long as she can.