Athlete of the Week – Addison Johanson

PC senior and varsity volleyball player Addison Johanson has been named Jersey Mike’s Athlete of the Week. Addison shares her answers to AD Lyslo’s Q+A below.

Addison, congratulations on being named PC athlete of the week. You guys have really started to play some of your best volleyball these last two weeks. You were hurt early in the season, but have recovered well. How are you feeling physically and then how do you feel about how the teams is playing? 

The time off from my injury made me realize how grateful I am to get to play with these girls. The past two weeks of being back have been a great comeback for the team going undefeated in league so far. Physically, I’m not 100% better yet, but I’m doing everything I can to get back to my full capacity for further in the season. The team has been doing collectively better each game and growing in our team chemistry each time we step on the court.

Coming into the season, your schedule was stacked in the non-league and the challenges were going to benefit you, hopefully now and later in the season. Do you feel the early season struggles will be good for your group later in the season? 

Although playing harder and higher ranked teams didn’t affect our ranking the way we wanted to, playing those more competitive teams definitely helped our team dynamic a lot more than if we played easier teams and won, like a lot of other teams did in our league.

This is a four-year run for you and this group now. Has the high school time flown by and are you enjoying the fact you may only have one month of high school volleyball to play? 

It’s crazy to think that I only have one more month of PC volleyball left. These past four years with my coaches and a lot of these girls have meant so much to me and I’m sad to leave this program next year, but I’m really proud of what we’ve built these last few years.

The younger players in this group were really forced to grow up and play some tough teams early in the season. Have you seen the maturity in the younger players?  Who is standing out in your eyes?  

I’ve definitely seen a lot more maturity in these freshmen and sophomores in the past month. Lately, I’ve been really impressed with our two freshmen on varsity, Faith Newman and Presley Bonner. These two got thrown into the deep end and have been forced out of their comfort zone, but they’ve been doing a great job in games and being focused in practice.

Homecoming is tomorrow and you guys have a marquee game at 6:00 pm. What do you think the atmosphere will be like and are you excited to play in front of the big crowd? 

The homecoming game is one of my favorite games of the whole season because almost everyone shows up. I’m very used to playing in front of a big crowd, and was thrown into that early on being in the state championship game as a freshman, so I love the atmosphere of a big crowd.

So if you had to look five weeks ahead from today, you are right there on the verge of competing for state again. What would be a perfect scenario for you and your team and what will it take to accomplish this? 

In five weeks from now we will be headed into the playoffs, or even the final eight. A perfect scenario would be us going into the state tournament as underdogs like we were my freshman year, and surprising people with how much more preparation we’ve done since the start of our season. It will take a lot of hard work and dedication in every practice and game to achieve this goal, but I think we could do it if we stay locked in now to the end.