At volleyball’s (16–9; 5–5 NESCAC) regular season final against Tufts (18–8; 7–3 NESCAC), defensive specialist Anna Yeh ’27 reached a major milestone: 1,000 career digs. Although the team lost that match, they went on to win a rematch last Saturday, where Yeh achieved 18 digs and 11 assists.

For Yeh, the milestone has come with gratitude and a bit of surprise, as she spent almost a third of her junior season filling in for an injured teammate who played a defensive position that lends itself to fewer digs. This meant time away from her usual position and less opportunities to score digs and grow her stats.

“[1,000 digs] feels really good, and I think it’s been interesting because my trajectory on the team wasn’t necessarily traditional or linear for someone in my position,” Yeh said.

While the volleyball team has had a successful season and will be competing in the NESCAC semifinals tonight at Colby, Yeh shared that her ultimate goal has never been winning. When deciding to play volleyball in college, her focus was finding a community she would enjoy playing in.

“I went through the recruiting process. I wanted to play just because I enjoy it, not necessarily because I wanted to reach some ultimate goal of winning,” Yeh said. “That’s important to me, but not as much as just being able to play a team sport with people I actually like, so I think that was great about Bowdoin.”

Yeh picked up volleyball in elementary school and has stuck with the sport since. She started playing on her school’s team in fifth grade before pursuing the sport more competitively.

“I tried out for the local club team, and my mom was like, ‘Are you sure? Like this is a big time and money commitment. Are you sure you want to do this? You have to stick it out even if you don’t like it,’” Yeh said. “And I was like, ‘No, you don’t understand. I really want to do this,’ and then I just stuck with it ever since. I had so much fun.”

Yeh noted that, because volleyball is a fall sport, the team has been a core part of her college experience since her first day on campus.

“It’s been great. Honestly, coming in as a first year, with it being a fall sport, I feel like it was great to have immediate structure in my life,” Yeh said.

Now in her senior season, Yeh reflected that she and the rest of her class have the opportunity to shape team culture positively where everyone feels supported and accountable to one another.

“[The seniors] want to present the same message,” Yeh said. “Seeing our leadership, we can bring things that are unique to each of us,… And that’s the great part, playing off of different people’s strengths, and also being able to hold each other accountable when we need to. And I think that’s honestly just spilled over to the rest of the team.”

Like in many team sports, Yeh argued that creating and maintaining a good team culture is critical to success.

“It’s a tie between the mental aspect, and, for team sports, keeping and creating a good team culture. I think it can be so hard, especially in high school and college, with so many different parts, you just have people coming in and people leaving,” Yeh said. “With all that change in leadership every single year, I think things can change very quickly, and you might have something that’s really good, and then [it can] disappear if you don’t really fight to keep it.”

Despite the challenge of changing leadership, Yeh feels that this year’s team culture is built to last.

“I think this year, we really built something that hopefully will endure. It seems like every single person is someone I know will fight to keep [it],” Yeh said.

Looking toward the NESCAC semifinals, Yeh detailed the team’s preparations, especially as the cheers of the Colby crowd can easily throw off a player’s mental game.

“Colby fans always show up,” Yeh said. “Our coach literally recorded the sound of their fans from one of the matches and played it in our gym every time someone made a mistake or something because it’s so loud.”

Ultimately, Yeh is excited about the match and the opportunity to compete.

“I think we always have a good time against Colby, and not just for the Bowdoin-Colby rivalry, but I think our two teams just play off each other nicely in terms of our styles,” Yeh said.