GLEN CARBON – Junior Sami Oller can’t decide which sports season she likes better. In the fall she’s an outside hitter for Father McGivney Catholic High School’s volleyball team and in the winter months, she plays guard in basketball.
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Right now though, she’s just getting the volleyball season started and is ready for more.
“Super excited. We love having the whole school come out and support us,” she said after the team’s home opener in which they won two sets to none against Mulberry Grove. “It feels great when everyone is here and is being loud.”
With the win, the team moves back to a positive record of 5-4. Oller is a Byron Carlson Petri & Kalb Female Athlete of the Month for Father McGivney Catholic.
It was only their second non-tournament match of the season. After going 3-4 in the Roxana Tournament, the Griffins finished in eighth place out of 16 schools. Not exactly what Sami was hoping for.
“I feel like we played well, but I think we didn’t have that good of a connection like we should have.”
She was happy about the back-to-back wins over Greenville and Mulberry Grove.
“We worked that out tonight and worked as a team.”
She says the thing she wants most out of her junior year is to just improve, individually and as a team, in both sports.
“With as close as we’ve gotten this summer, I feel like we’re going to go pretty far,” she said referring to the volleyball season.
She’ll be in a basketball uniform sooner rather than later though and it's arguably her better sport, but that is up for debate. She jokingly said that she couldn’t decide which sports season is her favorite because she’s been playing both volleyball and basketball since she was a kid.
Last year, Sami and the basketball team finished with a record of 24-9. She was third on the team in scoring notching 187 points in 32 games played. She also gets it done in the backcourt with 69 defensive rebounds, 55 steals, and 25 blocks. She’s become a great two-way player on the court in both sports actually.
If the main goal is to improve, she certainly will. She and the volleyball squad will be back in action on Thursday, September 1st against Mascoutah. That match will be away and begin at 6:45 p.m.
