Fall preview: Bishop Guertin volleyball

The new face on the sidelines for the Bishop Guertin High School girls volleyball team is a familiar one.

Brittany O’Bryant enters her first year as the varsity coach of the Cardinals with a team that advanced to the Division I semifinals a year ago before falling to eventual-champion Londonderry.

But O’Bryant, who played at Merrimack and coached at BG last season, has a fairly new roster to work with.

“It’s going to be a fresh start,” she said. “We graduated six. We have a lot of newcomers who have a lot of drive. Our chemistry already is good, it’s just trying to figure out how to work together.”

The Cardinals do return three starters in senior Holly Zaharchuk and juniors Natalie Wingate and Rebecca Noyes. They’ll be joined by returning seniors Hannah Hyatt and Rochelle Wilkins, along with junior Tiffany Stanton.

“(Zaharchuk) is very strong and brings a lot of leadership qualities,” O’Bryant said. “Natalie Wingate, she was a strong part of our team last year. Hannah Hyatt is going to step up into a starting position hopefully. We have a lot of sophomores who are stepping up into bigger roles.”

Some of those newcomers include junior Meghan Freise and sophomores Elizabeth Noyes, Rachel Szczygielski, Mackenzie Marr and Nicole Pettiglio.

While O’Bryant believes the Cardinals have the talent to be successful this year, it’s how those skills mesh that will ultimately determine their fate.

“I think the key is to be able to work together,” she said. “You can have all the talent in the world, but if you can’t work together, you can’t win games. Last year, I think we struggled with that a little bit. This year, they’ve bonded so well. I think the girls are a lot stronger together and hopefully that chemistry will show us through.”

Bishop Guertin opens the season Tuesday at Manchester Central.