Navajo Nation community rallies around Rock Point girls volleyball champions
The Rock Point girls volleyball team had a perfect season, going undefeated and sealing it wiith the 1A Conference high school state championship on Nov. 6.
But the win was more than a championship for the team. It was a victory for an entire community on the Navajo Nation.
Rock Point Community School is located in the far northeastern corner of Arizona on the Navajo reservation. The school was established by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but is overseen by a local governing board, were they teach both English and Navajo native language and culture.
The girls volleyball program was built from the bottom up and started back in 2006. In 2019, the team made it to the semifinals and lost to Mogollon.
They were expecting 2020 to be their year, but the pandemic had different plans. Rock Point's girls team didn't have a volleyball season last year. The Navajo Nation was severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and fall high school sports were canceled there.
This year allowed for the community to rally around head coach Kyle Arthur and his team.
"During the pandemic, we were all isolated but now this year we had an opportunity to come together as a community. I felt that the volleyball program did that," Arthur said.
The girls volleyball team had to travel all the way to Scottsdale for the state tournament. The finals were held at Coronado High School, more than 300 miles and a roughly 5½-hour drive from Rock Point.
The team is used to traveling, having had to make long road trips for several regular season away games in the 1A conference of the Arizona Interscholastic Association, which includes many smaller, rural Arizona high schools. Plus two of their players are on club teams that travel to Phoenix, Arthur said.
Ahead of the long trip for the two-day championship tournament Nov. 5-6, school was closed on Friday so the team could have the support of their community in Scottsdale.
"Seeing everybody come together in Phoenix it was very loud and it was a great thing to see," Arthur said.
Earlier in the season, the team competed in the Joseph City tournament facing off against 2A teams, which helped prepare the girls for Tempe Prep, who they faced in the state final after winning in the opening rounds.
By remaining focused and having fun, the team sealed its state championship, beating Tempe Prep by two points in the final set.
"We had unfinished business from last year not having a season due to the pandemic and I think we could have taken the state championship last year," Arthur said. "I think us coming back this season we knew what we had to be done and we have finished business."
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Rock Point High School volleyball wins AIA 1A state championship
