Raider Volleyball Season Recap

The Portland High School volleyball season came to an end recently. The Raiders finished second in their conference for the season.

Coach Lindsay Barker said, “We had a great season this year. We accomplished a lot of goals this season. We didn’t hit our biggest goal of winning the league, but we took 2nd and that is an awesome accomplishment for this team. In the pre-season, LSJ projected us to finish 5th place in the conference after finishing the prior season 3-7. That really pushed us and our competitiveness. We flipped that record around this year and finished 7-3. The matches against Lansing Catholic were the best rival games. They were so competitive, both teams wanted it. We came up short, but it could’ve gone either way.”

The Raiders had six players nominated for all All-Conference honors. Maya Lankford, Faith Russman and Rachel Vanhouten were All-Conference Honorable Mention. Seniors Leslie Barker and Jolee Pung, along with junior Emma Johnson were named All-Conference.

Coach Barker said, “Seniors Jolee Pung and Lesley Barker were nominated Honorary Captains and were Captains on the team. Lesley Barker finished the season with a 6.5 Dig per Set percentage and Jolee Pung finished with a 3.0 Kill per set percentage. Lesley Barker also beat her older sister’s (Jaylen Barker) school dig record of 626 digs per season with 640 digs.” Johnson finished with 8.13 set assists per set percentage.

Coach Barker added, “I am so proud of these girls! It was a great season with great chemistry on the court. We are losing some big seniors, but we also have a lot of strong returners coming back to fight for that title.”

The final standings for the conference were:

Lansing Catholic 10-0

Portland 7-3

Ionia 6-4

Eaton Rapids 4-6

Charlotte 3-7

Lansing Sexton 0-10