In her fourth year of varsity volleyball, the Jayhawk captain leads the team in digs per set (4.8) and stakes her senior season on bringing about some of the best defense in recent memory.

Winning 10 of 14 matches to begin September, St. Joseph, chasing Altamont for first place in 1A Region 22, is flocking toward an eighth consecutive winning season – and far more.

St. Joseph cleaned out lowly Ben Lomond in three sets (25-2, 25-6, 25-9) on Tuesday at home; Yates and fellow senior Cecily Nelson led the floor with 14 combined aces. Rising to nine shutouts on the year, St. Joseph is asserting itself as a difficult opponent on the back row.

“Defensively, I feel like we’ve started out strong but continued to get stronger with that,” Yates said. “Our middles have stepped up, especially since last season, especially Sophia Fischer. She’s really taken a step up.”

The player-coach benefit is certainly profitable, but it’s taken four years for Yates to develop the leadership skills from 12th-year Jayhawks coach Cindy White, 162-91 in all-time matches, as well as several former teammates.

This season, Yates is taking it upon herself to distribute similar leadership to those Jayhawks along the back row.

“She’s really helped me to gain the confidence to be able to do that,” Yates said of White. “I think having the upperclassmen that I had as a sophomore, too, really helped to have someone to look up to and want to be.”

Two of three team captains, Fischer and Yates are St. Joseph’s senior presence in the back; outside Mya Rogers (3.4 kills per set) and outside hitter-turned-setter Allison Pilacik (248 assists) apply their depth up front.

With seven underclassmen, and two new seniors, Cecily Nelson and Milada Kovar, St. Joseph and White, have leaned heavily on their core four to build upon a 3-2 start last month.

“They have a goal in mind,” White said. “We’ve been able to bring in these new faces and bring it all together… They’ve really had to pull them in a lot, and it’s taken time to pull them in and I put a lot of credit on those four getting them to recognize, hey, this is what we want for the season. You better get there.”

Attending a school of roughly 140 students, the volleyball team sees each other far more often than practice. It’s in those spaces – bus rides, the classroom, extracurriculars, etc. – that Yates and her captains have build a rapport that translates onto the court, whether at practice or in the heat of a regular-season match.

Part of the process is being assertive, Yates said, but it’s only possible when the girls around her can trust their captains.

“It makes it super easy when we step on the court,” Yates said. “We have a good connection on the court because we have such a good one off the court… I love working with everybody and connection and bond.”

Beginning next week, it’s back on the bus for the Jayhawks.

Wrapping up just its sixth home match on Tuesday, St. Joseph preps for arguably its toughest stretch of the regular season, a six-game road tour, including heavy-handed region tests at Manila, Tintic, Altamont and Rich. The Jayhawks host a home volleyball make until Oct. 9 vs. Wendover, the first of three final home matches in Ogden.

Each of those opponents, region foe or otherwise, is worthy of their complete game, White said. The BL match was White’s latest exam to see just how well her team filled out the floor against a neighboring 3A program.

“I’m just trying to get them to focus on the game at hand,” White said. “When we don’t play at that higher level, they don’t tend to bring it. I’m really trying to teach them that it doesn’t matter (the opponent), we’re working on playing the same game every day… I think today they finally did it.”

St. Joseph continues its run at Waterford on Monday, Sept. 14, in Sandy.

Connect with Standard-Examiner sports reporter Conner Becker via email at cbecker@standard.net, X @ctbecker and Instagram @standardexaminersports.