One major accomplishment down, one to go for the Grace Lutheran High School girls volleyball team.

The Royals beat Mackay and Aberdeen in straight sets over the last week to finish their regular season undefeated at 18-0, the first undefeated varsity team in the school’s relatively brief history. Now, the Royals are going to try to reach a state tournament for the first time in any sport when they compete in the combined Fifth-Sixth District Tournament at Shelley High School this weekend.

“Oh my goodness, it was so exciting,” said Ashleigh Sayer-Frederick, the Royals coach, of their straight set win over rival Mackay last week. “We won the match in three — the last time we played them it went to five, so I was anticipating that again. My girls just came out on fire and they didn’t stop.”

The Grace gym was packed in anticipation of a tough match with one of the three teams that have taken the Royals to five sets this season. “It was pretty amazing,” Frederick said. “There’s really no feeling in the world like it. We had a huge crowd, the whole gym erupted and it was pretty emotional.”

Grace then knocked off Aberdeen, 25-9, 25-12, 25-12 on Tuesday night to complete the undefeated regular season.

Now the seven members of the Grace volleyball squad — Mali Hall, Kirsten Krause, Lily Perry, Samantha Moretti, Isabella Hall, Maleah Iverson and Sarah Krause — are getting ready for the district tournament. With only 7 players on the squad, Frederick has had to use some creativity to conduct productive practices all season long. This week is no different.

“We’re trying to do some different, creative things in practice,” Frederick said. “We have one match where we are going to play our staff. We have a bunch of teachers that used to play volleyball, so we’ve got that going. We’re just going to try to do as many competitive drills as we can, and also just work on our strategy.”

The Royals open district play on Saturday at 3 p.m. against Clark County. If they win that match, they’ll play the winner of the Watersprings vs. Leadore match at 4:30 p.m. While nobody has managed to derail the Grace express this year, Leadore is one of three teams that have extended the Royals to five sets this year.

If Grace advances to the championship match, which will be held at Shelley High Oct. 17 at 6 p.m., they’ll likely face one of the two other schools to take them to five sets this year: Mackay or Rockland. While winning the district title is certainly the ultimate goal for Grace, the Royals could still make the state tournament if they lose in the championship game. The combined Fifth-Sixth District gets 2.5 berths in the state tournament, which means the top two teams qualify for state, and the third place team will face a play-in game to make it to state.

Frederick says the atmosphere around Grace, which just began as a high school in 2018, has been amazing since the volleyball team started on its run. “Our community has just been so amazing,” she said. “Everyone has just wrapped their arms around the volleyball players and it’s been really exciting. Everyone has been happy and excited for us.”

What will it take to win that first district championship?

“We need to play really well,” Frederick said. “Our girls have been practicing the same system all year. I think we just need to apply our strategy to whoever we face in the championship.”