Lily Bush, a senior at Sahuaro High School, is the girls’ varsity volleyball team captain. She has been playing volleyball at Sahuaro for four years.

Lily was born in Wyoming and lived there until the summer of her soon-to-be 8th-grade year when she moved to Arizona. She wasn’t playing sports too much in middle school until she found out about volleyball in her 7th-grade year and found a passion for it. She wanted to do club volleyball but never pushed her parents to have her do it.

When she first started playing high school volleyball her freshman year, she made JV, as an outside. Lily has always been a standout when it comes to her hitting – in her sophomore year, she made varsity. She played as a middle hitter, but unfortunately, she barely played. Lily claims, “It was hard to adjust to playing middle, and I didn’t like it very much and preferred to be a pin hitter instead.  It was also a lot of quick movement I wasn’t prepared for.”

Lily was seen as an underdog – she could perform very well, but not as well as some of her other teammates some would say. Nobody believed in her like her mom and grandma. Her grandmother pushed her to believe that she could be an amazing volleyball player. Lily began going to the gym and doing other extracurricular activities to help better herself for next year’s season.

Lily’s junior year, she proceeded to make varsity again as an outside hitter, which she claims she was relieved over because it was a much better fit for her. Lily was with a team of very talented people, and as the season started, she was nervous because she wasn’t getting a lot of playing time. Lily says, “At this point, there wasn’t much I could do but push even harder than I did last year and show out.”

Lily proceeded to have that mindset at her senior year tryouts. She blew the competition out of the water with all of the basic things. Her passing, serving, and hitting got high scores, as well as her teamwork and leadership skills on the court. Coach Haynes recognized how well Lily was doing, and decided to make her one of the official team captains for this year’s girls’ volleyball team. So far, Lily has had 39 kills, 63 digs, and 24 serving aces this season.