Last season, the Dartmouth High girls volleyball team advanced as far as the Division 2 South sectional finals before being knocked out by Notre Dame Academy, the team that went on to win the state championship. It was the furthest the Dartmouth team had advanced in a state tournament in close to two decades, and Head Coach Rachel Lassey knows it will be a lot of hard work to reach that point again.

“Coming off of a winning season you want to keep that momentum going,” Lassey said after a 3-0 win against Somerset-Berkley on September 20.

The team is already looking strong despite the loss of several key players from last year. The 14-person girls varsity team has three brand new captains, and a 4-1 record with only one loss to New Bedford.

“So far we’ve been doing very well,” said captain Cameron Coelho. “We’ve lost a lot of good people, but I feel like we’re at the same level we were at last year.”

The varsity team graduated three players, and now features a lineup of five returning starters who saw play time last season. But Lassey said both returning and new players have really stepped up to the challenge. Two freshmen — Lindsey Oliveira and Cierra Yim — are already starters on the team.

“We welcomed [the freshmen] in right away,” said captain Victoria Labree.

With five games into the season, Lassey said it’s just a matter of fine-tuning the team and working out some minor problems she noticed early in the season. She said while the team’s defense is very strong, her hitters are struggling on offense.

“Our setters can put the ball down really well,” Lassey said. “It just doesn’t happen often enough. We’re going to try and decrease our errors and really start swinging away.”

Aided by the team’s success last year, the program saw an unprecedented number of girls who attended tryouts in late August. With over 58 girls — 30 of them freshmen — trying out for the team, Lassey was forced to make some cuts. She currently has 37 players total.

Lassey said the team’s September 21 game against Barnstable will be a challenge, as they are a tough team. She said she is already working on improvements so Dartmouth is ready.