volleyball Archive

Baker School’s Haley Westberry still has her senior season in basketball season to finish. But she has already taken a big step in her educational and athletic future.
Westberry, an outside hitter for the Lady Gator Class 1A state champion volleyball team, has signed a scholarship to play at Coastal Alabama Community College in Brewton, Ala.

It has been almost four months since Baker School volleyball libero Chloe Ates to committed to play for St. Leo University, a Catholic school in St. Leo located near Tampa. Tuesday, Dec. 12, Ates, the libero on Baker’s state championship team, made it official signing with the Lions.

What do you call it when the Baker Gators or Lady Gators hold a celebration for a state championship? Baker athletic director said tradition, which is true as the Lady Gator volleyball team’s state championship is the seventh team title in school history. It might also be called a “Gatorbration.”

The 2023 Baker Lady Gator volleyball seniors will forever be linked together as the team that finally scaled Mount Championship.

Lily Adams, Chloe Ates, Karsyn Crinklaw and Haley Westberry were the players on the floor getting the cheers from the fans. Laney Alazone, the team manager was Baker’s fifth senior.

It’s true that the apple doesn’t seem to fall too far from the tree.

Some family trees produce lawyers. Other family trees might yield an abundance of actors, builders, mechanics or accountants.

Not all the numbers tell the full story of the 2023 Baker volleyball season. The Lady Gators finished the season with an 18-11 record. None of the 11 losses came against another 1A school. They beat seven schools in larger classifications including Milton, Crestview and Pace, twice.

The Baker Lady Gators volleyball team has to be hoping seven is in fact their lucky number. On six occasions the Lady Gators have played in the state championship match only to come home state runner up. Baker defeated Liberty County 3-1 on Monday in the Class 1A state semifinal by scores of 25-22, 26-24, 20-25, 25-23.

There are no Cinderellas left in the Class 1A volleyball tournament. On Tuesday night all four matches to decide who would play in the Final Four were between teams that were one or two seeds. In other words, it was the best of the best in Class 1A playing each other.

A slow start was not indicative to the way the Baker Lady Gators volleyball team would finish on Thursday as they hosted Freeport in the Region 1-1A semifinals. That slow start was the Lady Gators falling behind 18-11 in the first set. Baker scored the final 14 points of the set and took care of business in the second and thirds sets to sweep Freeport. The scores were 25-18, 25-12, 25-14.

One almost needs a calculator to figure out when a Baker volleyball team senior class didn’t win the district championship all four of their years on the team. It’s easier just to count the number of consecutive titles. That number now sits at 21 after the Lady Gators beat Jay in three sets for another district crown.