Coach Bob Watson believed long ago that this could be a special year for the Cardinal Newman volleyball team.

Senior Erin Zander needed a little more convincing.

Watson, secure in the knowledge that every starter returned from a 13–9 squad, helped orchestrate a season– ending stretch that will forge, he hopes, a state championship team.

As a result, Cardinal Newman is in the midst of an eight–day stretch in which it faced public schools Irmo (Class 4A) on Monday, Camden on Wednesday, and faces Class 3A Airport on Monday. Camden and Airport qualified for the public high school playoffs last year. Also in the stretch were SCISA regional games against Columbia rivals Heathwood Hall and Hammond.

“We need to play these types of teams to see different looks, so we’ll be prepared to face them in the playoffs,” Watson said. “Irmo was a huge athletic team; we’ll see other teams that are strong on the outside. We need to see the tall teams, the teams that handle the ball well, so we can learn how to play them.”

Cardinal Newman (13–4 overall) didn’t need to learn anything to dispatch Heathwood Hall, 3–0 (25–16, 25–6, 25–18), on Tuesday. The Cardinals improved to 7–1 in matches against SCISA teams, against whom they have lost just four games in those matches (all to St. Joseph’s, including a 3–2 loss on Oct. 1).

“(That loss) has made us push harder,” senior Denise Jeanmougin said. “It makes us want to prove that we can do this, that one loss isn’t going to stop us from achieving our goals.”

Though the back–to– back losses to St. Joseph’s and Irmo were the Cardinals’ first losing streak this season, the season split against Irmo and a 5–2 mark against teams that qualified for the SCHSL playoffs last year has had its desired effect.

“When we went to the Sumter tournament and not only kept up with Wando and Rock Hill but also gave them all they could handle, that started me thinking we really were good enough to do this,” Zander said.

The Cardinals were more than good enough to take care of the Highlanders. Veteran Division I college coach Nancy Somera, who is in her first year at Heathwood Hall, is building the program around a starting lineup that includes three freshmen and an eighth– grader. On Tuesday, the Heathwood Hall played without its starting setter, Eliza Nixon, who was ill.

Though the Highlanders’ front–line tandem of senior Haniel Ogburu and eighth–grader A’ja (pronounced Asia) Wilson provided some obstacles for Cardinal Newman, Heathwood Hall couldn’t deal with the velocity of Cardinal Newman’s serves and its ability to change pace on other shots.

“We’re steadily getting better,” Somera said. “When we started in May, we didn’t understand the transition game, staying ahead of the point and the flow of the rally. Now, they are beginning to show that, and we’re rallying with teams, but we’re still the team that makes the first mistake.”

On the other side of the net, Cardinal Newman plans on being the last team not to make one.