Diary of a Yorktown Player: Donika Zherka

Yorktown senior middle hitter Donika Zherka brings with her the experience of working on her game this summer in Europe.

Here is what Donika said of her expectations for the upcoming season:

"The backbone of success is usually found in old-fashioned, basic concepts like hard work, determination, good planning and perseverance."
  ~ Mia Hamm

The Yorktown High School Volleyball team basically lives by this quote. We want to succeed and go farther than we have ever gone before. We want to make our school proud of us.

It's a new season, and a new team. In preparation for the new season we have done many things.

We started thinking about the new season way back when the last season ended. Most of us on the team played club volleyball after the school season ended.

We did it to get better and since most of us played on the same club team we also improved our relationships with each other. We became best friends, which made our game better.

Once our club season ended we started having open gyms after school in June and in the summer during July. Many of us attended a camp or a program that had to do with volleyball as well.

Even on our own time we prepared for the season. We all had volleyball on the brain which made us want to do good.

So to prepare individually we made sure that we were in shape for the upcoming season, which was a very smart thing to do. Once we came back officially for the pre-season our new varsity coach, Coach (Katy) Sherwood, started working us hard.

We work on our skills and we condition. And at the end of each practice we do a workout video called Insanity, which is said to be the hardest workout on DVD. We also come in twice a day to get more practice in.

As you can see we are working really hard so that we can achieve our goal this year. Our goal is to do better, to win.

We will do what ever it takes to prepare for this upcoming season because we all want to succeed. I think that we can do it; I have faith in us.

So do our family members and our friend Kate who is here to support us even if she can't play with us this year. She is one of the reasons why we are pushing ourselves so hard to do well.

When she collapsed at one of our open gyms due to a heart condition and had to go to the hospital, we were all scared for her. But she came out strong and full of support for us.

Many of us who were there that day were effected by that incident emotionally. But it only pushed us to work harder, not only for ourselves but for Kate as well.

This is a new season, with a new team that has a new attitude and we are coming in strong and ready to win.