FARMINGTON -- Camryn Journagan established senior leadership at the start of Farmington's 2017-2018 school year on the volleyball court and was named team captain.
By late October when the regular season ended, Journagan, who has been named Female Athlete-of-the-Year for school year 2017-2018 at Farmington by the Enterprise-Leader, led the Lady Cardinals in aces with 43 and digs with 572.
"Nine of our 17 girls were new to us this year," said Farmington coach Marshall Ward, noting, "Camryn has done an excellent job of bringing this team together."
Her teammates equally enjoyed the season with classmate Ella Wilson setting a new school record for most career block-kills notching two against Harrison. Wilson sat out her sophomore season after a near-death experience when she collapsed during a freshman basketball game and had to be revived with a defibrillator.
Upon receiving medical clearance to play, Wilson tallied 54 block-kills as a junior and added 46 as a senior to become the first Farmington girl to reach 100 in that category according to Ward, breaking a record held previously by Maria McPherson, the older sister of Isabella McPherson.
Isabella McPherson maintained a team-first attitude and was not bothered that she was involved in breaking her sister's record.
"It's impressive, honestly, I play front row in JV and sometimes I can't even block, so the fact they broke records is impressive," Isabella McPherson said. "I'm really happy I got to do volleyball here at Farmington. It's been the best years of my life."
Wilson was low-key about breaking the record, saying her technique gave her an advantage, attributing racking up block-kills to "just pushing my hands over the net."
"Most people don't do that and it shanks off of them," Wilson said. "It was nothing big, it just happened. It's my way of contributing because I don't do much back-row I try to help out my back-row players."
Journagan cherished relationships built through athletic competition. She experienced "Senior Night" three times during the 2017-2018 school year. After her final home volleyball match, Journagan admitted senior night was bittersweet realizing her high school days of playing sports at Cardinal Arena were numbered.
"I became close with a lot of the girls," Journagan said, admitting, "I never thought I would be sharing a passion (for volleyball) with so many girls. I'm really going to miss this atmosphere and this environment."
Sports on 06/20/2018