Walking on to the volleyball court during varsity practice can be a perilous situation for people of a less athletic nature, with shouts ringing through the open air, smacks from the powerful hands of a server and the occasional thump of a stray volleyball finding its way to the sidelines. But in the middle of the action are the two players that exude confidence on the court-the two varsity volleyball team captains.

“I have to win at everything,” captain Lexi Lopez said. “Whether it’s volleyball or ping pong, I’m gonna win. I get really flustered sometimes and get really intense and I kind of just look at Liv and she makes me happy again. It’s a really good balance to have.”

The two captains, Lexi Lopez and Olivia Fidler, are the dynamic duo of the volleyball team, taking their wildly different personalities and using them to help support the team in any aspect.

“One is super competitive and intense all the time and the other one picks the team up because she’s funny and she kind of keeps us grounded and from being so serious all the time,” head Coach Kelly McCarter said. “They definitely play off one another and balance each other in that aspect.”

Lopez is the more competitive of the two, with a fire in her eyes as she intensifies all her energy into the game, and shares that fire with the rest of her team.

“They both bring a lot of energy to all of us and it makes us want to win 10 times more,” sophomore varsity player Ryan Palmieri said. “Lexi’s just there to push you and make you better every single time.”

Fidler, however, brings a more lighthearted aspect to the team, with her laughing and joking lifting the team’s spirits.

“They’re like polar opposites of each other,” Palmieri said. “Lexi is super competitive and Liv is not as competitive. But Liv is just so fun loving and she makes me laugh with everything she says.”

The teammates aren’t just different in the way they act- their volleyball histories are also radically different. Lopez developed a deep connection to the sport even when she was young.

“I started playing club when I was 10,” Lopez said. “I just fell in love with it and I thought it was a really cool team sport. It’s taught me a lot of leadership and I don’t know what I would do without it, to be honest.”

With Fidler, her volleyball career didn’t have as smooth of a start and her passion and skill for the sport took some time to grow.

“I played in seventh grade and my first point my first game I didn’t know what to do,” Fidler said. “I was on B team 2 so the bottom of the bottom. The first play of the game I was passing and I just caught the ball and I didn’t know what to do. Really I just started playing volleyball because all my friends played it.”

Even though the two captains contrast in many ways, they both represent the deeper ethics of the Vandegrift sports dynamic that make the team stand out from the crowd.

“It’s more about the values you uphold, the characteristics that you stand for day in and day out, the way that you express yourself on the court and in the classroom, just as your whole character within,” McCarter said.

Whether or not they were playing on varsity as team captains, the dynamic duo, who they are as people, has been shaped by their devotion to volleyball, on and off the court.

“It’s a huge part of who I am every day,” Lopez said. “Without volleyball, I wouldn’t have learned what it means to be a true leader and what work ethic is. Having our coaches and just taking my competitiveness and driving it into something all the way- I wouldn’t work as hard as I do today in everything if it wasn’t for volleyball.”