The East Haven girls’ volleyball team is finishing up its tryouts as the Yellowjackets prepare for the upcoming season. When his team takes the court, Head Coach Craig Brown will be looking for the Easties to demonstrate that hard work can overcome any challenge standing in their way.

East Haven is coming off of a season that saw the team finish with an overall record of 4-16. The Yellowjackets will open the 2022 campaign with a home match versus Branford on Thursday, Sept. 8, after which will they face Lauralton Hall and North Haven on the road in their next two contests.

As East Haven goes through its tryout process, Coach Brown has been trying to piece together the best combinations of players. Above everything else, Brown wants the athletes on his team to function as a cohesive unit and become the type of club that will continue building the Yellowjackets’ program.

“We’re going through the evaluation process and trying to make sure we have the right players in the right positions,” Coach Brown said. “We’re piecing the puzzle together for the season. We’re getting all the right players together to have the most successful season we can.”

In order to build up the program, Coach Brown believes that the Easties must return to their scrappy ways of the past. Brown said some of the Yellowjackets’ most successful seasons have come from teams that had a knack for battling to the last point of every match. When the new season begins, Brown wants to see this year’s squad adopt that mantra.

“We have to get back to when we were at our best. When we were at our best, we had teams that would scrap with everybody else, regardless if they were bigger or were expected to be a better team,” said Brown. “We competed with all of them, kept it scrappy, and forced them into a lot of unforced errors. That’s the mindset we’re going to try and reinstall into this team.”

This season, East Haven will be led by senior captain Nicole SanGiovanni, a setter who has been a member of the program since her freshman year. SanGiovanni’s sister Julia also played for the team before graduating in 2018. Coach Brown remembers seeing SanGiovanni watch the Easties compete from the bleachers when she was in middle school. Brown said that SanGiovanni represents the East Haven volleyball program at its best and feels that she’s ready to lead the team to victory as a senior captain.

“Nicole has been a member of this team for four years now. She has seen what it takes to be successful, whether she was a player or spectator,” Brown said. “We know she is going to do everything she can to get this team back up to that level.”

Along with SanGiovanni, East Haven’s senior class also includes Autumn Clancy and Alice Stettinger. Clancy, who is returning to the team this season, is looking to fill a versatile role for the Yellowjackets. Coach Brown said that Clancy is slated to play a defensive role on the floor and is also a candidate to be the team’s libero. Stettinger will play up at the net and be tasked with helping to control the tempo for the Yellowjackets both offensively and defensively.

With just three seniors on the team, Coach Brown understands that there will be a lot of responsibility on them to help to Easties succeed. However, Brown said that all three of East Haven’s seniors are the perfect people for the job and that the players behind them and are accepting their guidance.

“When you only have a couple seniors, there’s a lot more pressure on them. But I think these are the right three girls with the right girls behind them to be led,” said Brown. “With their leadership, we can get this team in the right direction. With their scrappiness from the top down, we’ll be able to compete with almost everybody on the schedule.”

In addition to the seniors, Coach Brown is expecting solid performances from junior Ava Avena and sophomore Lexi Heaphy this season. Avena plays the setter position, and Heaphy will be moving to outside hitter after playing libero last year.

Coming off of a four-win season, Coach Brown and the Yellowjackets are eager to take a step in the right direction this year. Brown said that his athletes want to win and are ready to play hard. As his team grows throughout the season, Brown is hoping that East Haven can qualify for both SCCs and states in the 2022 campaign.

Coach Brown knows that the Easties have to be willing to put in the work in order to achieve their goals this season. Once that first serve is hit, Brown wants the Yellowjackets to prove that they can compete among the top squads in their conference.

“We just have to work. We’re going to have to work harder than most of the teams we play,” Brown said. “We’re a shorter team, height-wise. We’re not as typically deep as most of these teams with experience. But if we can hang tough, put a lot of stress on them, and stay scrappy, we can compete with a lot of these big dogs.”