Volleyball lost the Dig Pink game to St. Michael the Archangel Catholic that supported seniors Brie Bowes and Erika Sesler’s senior service project. 

The Pink Out game supported the Susan G. Komen foundation, which is the largest breast cancer organization in the United States. The foundation is focused on providing help to current breast cancer patients, research to help end breast cancer and provide screenings to help catch breast cancer earlier. 

“I was really proud all of we did for it,” Sesler said. “I was really proud of how it turned out, and we ended up getting a lot of donations last night during the game.” 

Sesler and Bowes have both been personally affected by breast cancer, according to Sesler. Sesler’s mom was diagnosed with the disease in 2012 and has been battling it ever since. Bowes’ grandmother was diagnosed as well. The pair raised over $1,300 for the foundation through t-shirt sales and donations at the game. 

“My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012, and she had it removed and then had reconstruction later that school year,” Sesler said. “Then she was diagnosed in 2015 with stage four breast cancer and has been on targeted therapy ever since. That was my reason for doing this project—because my mom has breast cancer.”  

The volleyball team wore pink jerseys to support the cause and bought the shirts Bowes and Sesler were selling to use as warm-up jerseys. With the added theme and charity for the game, there was a larger student section and crowd supporting them than usual, according to senior captain Marigrace Bishop. 

“Doing the Dig Pink game got me really excited and hyped up,” Bishop said. “I think it also got other people’s energy up on the team as well.” 

The first set was a close match with the lead switching back and forth between the two teams. During the second set St. Michaels was able to create a larger lead, but the team was still able to keep motivating each other, according to Bishop.

“In our first set we played really well as a team,” Bishop said. “I think the second set we just had our energy off. Still, I thought we were still really good at keeping up our spirits and motivating each other.” 

The varsity volleyball team lost to St. Michaels in two sets during the game. The team had good individual efforts, including juniors Brynna Dow and Gabby Gaither who had multiple kills in the game but needs to continue to grow as a team in the future games, according to varsity coach Charles Cooper. 

“Individually, I thought there were some great efforts,” Cooper said. “I’d like a little bit stronger defensive reading and a little bit more serving that puts pressure on the other team.”