Mt. Ararat/Brunswick/Morse volleyball coach Janey Martin speaks with the varsity volleyball team after a practice at Mt. Ararat High School on Aug. 28. Cooper Sullivan / The Times Record

TOPSHAM — Starting your freshman year of high school can be intimidating. But what about doing it at three high schools?

For Morse freshman Savannah Plummer, this was somewhat the case when she showed up to compete for the Brunswick/Mt. Ararat/Morse co-op volleyball team.

Plummer has never played volleyball and didn’t know anyone on the team from Morse, let alone the other schools. She was nervous when she walked through the Brunswick and Mt. Ararat gymnasium doors for tryouts. After two weeks of meeting others and securing a spot on the junior varsity team, Plummer said she feels more at ease.

“Most of them were really accepting,” Plummer said about the team dynamics. “(Saying) ‘Good job’, or just the simple things really mean a lot being new to this.”

This is exactly the welcoming atmosphere head coach Janey Martin looks to establish. Now in her fourth season, Martin’s team-first culture is second nature, even as the roster keeps changing.

“Our goal is to build the sport,” she said. “And to build the sport, you have to make it welcoming, right? It can’t be intimidating. You have to be approachable. So we try to relay that to our returning players. Remember when you first came in for a tryout, it’s new to you, how did you want them to act?”

Brunswick and Mt. Ararat first partnered together in 2017 before Morse joined the mix last fall. This year, the program has 11 players from Brunswick, 11 from Mt. Ararat and two from Morse. Even with the split allegiances, rivalries do not carry over.

“We’re all just one big team, and that’s exactly how we treat it,” Mt. Ararat senior Layla Purcell said. “There’s no, ‘Oh, you’re from Brunswick, so this little clique is over here, and you’re from Mt. Ararat, so this little group is over here.’ We’re all just one big team. We don’t even think about who’s from what school or anything.”

At the beginning of the season, it can be an adjustment for newcomers and returners to get used to teammates from other schools, but by the time the first match rolls around, the connections are steadfast.

Martin says the friendships carry on and off the court. Previous teams have gone to football games together just to support their teammates’ school, for example.

“As upperclassmen, we do our best to be very inviting,” Purcell said. “We don’t put others down, we don’t criticize, we build each other up. That’s the whole point of this sport. If we’re not loud and active altogether, it won’t work.”

Logistics tend to be the biggest day-to-day challenges for the co-op.

Although Brunswick is considered the host school and the team chants “1, 2, 3, Dragons” out of the huddle, Martin tries to be fair and split practice time between Brunswick and Topsham, while making sure to communicate this with the players and parents. She also tries to keep all three athletic directors in the loop.

Kaili Phillips, Brunswick’s athletic director, was the head coach when Brunswick introduced volleyball as a varsity sport in 2016 and partnered with Mt. Ararat in 2017. In three of her four years as coach, Phillips led the Dragons to the Class A quarterfinals.

Now with Phillips in an administrative role, Martin says she becomes an advocate familiar with the team’s needs.

“It’s fun for the girls to know that people higher up in the school are invested in what they’re doing, because it’s not popular,” Martin said. “We don’t have a lot of student body in this stands, so just to be recognized in the hallway by somebody, I think is good. It’s validity in what they’re doing and the work they’re putting in.”

As for how long this three-school partnership will last, timing will be the deciding factor. Each co-op agreement lasts for two years, but in order for the schools to go their separate ways, Martin wants enough participation for Brunswick and Mt. Ararat to each field a varsity and JV team. (She anticipates Morse would continue to co-op based on current numbers.) But that doesn’t happen until youth and middle school volleyball programs start gaining traction in the Midcoast.

“A big task was and still is teaching student-athletes the game at a rapid pace in order to compete with other schools whose players have played for a longer period of time,” Phillips wrote in an e-mail. “A secondary challenge that exists throughout the state is that there is a shortage of potential coaches; many schools have a difficult time fielding teams — not because they won’t have the student interest, but because the adults who live here largely didn’t grow up playing volleyball and haven’t had the opportunity to know the game well enough.”

Regardless, Martin treats the situation the same way she treats practice — accepting it for what it is and continuing to incrementally progress.

“I’m big on attainable goals,” Martin said. “Like, there’s no state championship for us this year, probably the next five years. That’s fine. But I want girls to come back. I want them to enjoy it. I want them to enjoy working hard at it. I don’t want it to be like recess volleyball. We’re working. It’s still a varsity program. We’re still competing. We’re still trying to win.”

Brunswick/Mt. Ararat/Morse volleyball starts the 2024 season with a match against Hampden Academy at Brunswick on Sept. 5.