Veritas Christian School seniors, from left, Becky Woods, Kristie Tiegreen and Adrienne Willems have played volleyball together since eighth grade and are using the chemistry they've developed to lead the Eagles to a solid season.

According to most high school coaches, every senior class was a special one. For Veritas Christian volleyball coach Kyle Billings, this year’s group is special for more than the typical reasons.

Kristie Tiegreen, Adrienne Willems and Becky Woods made up Billings’ first freshman class when he took the head coaching position at Veritas.

“Four years is a long time,” Billings said. “They were shrimps when we started, and now they’re strong players, and it’s neat to see the progress.”

Strong players usually would decide to play for larger schools in the area. But Billings said his trio was in it for more than notoriety.

“I’ll give the credit to the team, that they would want to come back and play with the team,” Billings said. “And as a coach, I appreciate it immensely. A lot of kids opt to transfer thinking that that may be their ticket to get more publicity or getting seen more (by recruiters), and sometimes it can be, but it doesn’t have to be. I hope they made the right decisions by staying, and we’ll just have fun while they’re here.”

That’s not to say that the star-studded senior class didn’t have its moments of weakness along the way.

“I’ve thought about going to bigger schools and thought, ‘What would happen if I went to a bigger school? Would I still play?'” Tiegreen said. “But this is really where my heart is.”

All three upperclassmen expressed the same feeling that their fellow classmates were a big reason they stuck around to see the program blossom.

“Those two are like my sisters,” Tiegreen said. “It’s so much fun playing together all four years. We started out the varsity program with us three as starters when we finally got a varsity program.

“We’ve learned each other’s personalities. I can always tell when Adrian is frustrated, and we can just smile at each other. Or if Becky Woods is disappointed in herself, all you have to do is tell her that she can do it. It’s just cool that we can read each other’s emotions better, and I think that comes with playing together for so long.”

The emotional bond they share has helped them step up their play on the court. Perhaps the most important aspect of their personality was answered by all three with the same word: fun.

“Every year I think we learn how to work better together so that just makes it even more fun,” Woods said. “After a while you just get used to playing with them and you kind of have a groove that you get into. It’s just so much fun to know that you can count on each other and push each other, just as well.”

Their balanced personalities are easily matched by their balanced volleyball skills, with each one providing her own niche to help the team.

“It works out really nicely that we all have different specialty skills,” Willems said. “Like Kristie obviously has got the really awesome hitting, it turned out that I have really good setting skills and Becky has got amazing serving, passing and hitting skills. We’re all well-rounded, but then each one has their own strength, and they’re all different, so that’s really cool.”

Billings already has said goodbye to some seniors, but this group is the first one that he has molded since they were freshmen. Their skills and personalities have grown to complement one another, and because of their dedication, Billings has witnessed it all first-hand.

“It’s huge having such a good setter, such good defense and such good hitters out of your strong players,” Billings said. “It’s just a perfect storm that’s developed over the past four years. Now we’re getting to bask in its glory.”