Junior Cassandra Carrillo serves her second year playing sports at Ánimo Pat Brown. Her first year she decided to join softball, and this year she joined the volleyball team. Cassandra is the first female to play sports for two years in a row in the class of 2013.

“Cassandra has a great athletic ability and she’s a team player. She’s responsive to the advice and constructive criticism that I give her so for that reason I put her on the team,” Volleyball coach Nicki Dang said.

Volleyball practice is on Monday through Friday, from 3:30-6:30. Practice consists of running, scrimmage, taking approaches, and “servings”, also known as their swing.

Cassandra said some challenges she faced were serving, also the rotations were confusing at times and getting the first passes around.

Her transition from softball to volleyball was something new to Cassandra. “I wanted to maintain playing sports and stay active,” Cassandra said.

She is not only an active player, she also tries to maintain her grades up. “I’m not going to lie, it’s kind of hard to balance school and volleyball but it’s a risk you take when joining a team,” Cassandra said. “I basically go to practice, come home at 6:30 and eat, and then I just go to my room and start on my homework and don’t let anything distract me. I try to come to guide and study when I can to get help.”

Cassandra did not play any sports during her freshmen year. She said, “I did try out for softball in 9th grade, the first days of conditioning I thought it had a lot of running and I thought it was going to be difficult to maintain school grades up because I would get home late.”

Cassandra has progressed on her volleyball skills. At the volleyball game on September 28, 2011 against Community Harvest, her coach Nicki said, “she was swinging today and for the first set almost every swing she had was over the net.”

Being one out of two girls in APB playing sports makes Cassandra feel really proud of her accomplishments.

“I feel proud of myself because I know hardly any girls like to play sports and to be one out of two girls being in the volleyball team this year from APB and being the only girl last year in the softball team from APB makes me feel proud of myself,” Cassandra said.

Cassandra said that the two people that inspire her the most is her mother and uncle, that they’ve always been there for her and always tells her to try new things.

Her next move is to continue with softball when season comes around in February.