Teams can easily be defined by the numbers they post on a daily or weekly basis. Wins over losses, shutouts and swept matches. But every good team knows there is something extra that propels the top teams into the higher spots. It’s all about the intangibles – the things teams can’t quite put their fingers on, but that are there, every moment of every practice or game.

In the Lake Washington High School gym, the Kangs volleyball team, is working on their numbers, but understand those unknowns are going to be key.

“I think our strength is going to be in the intangible. In the ability that despite how young we are and it’s going to be in the passion and desire to win,” said head coach Claire Lazar.

Besides the unknowns, Lazar does know that defense is key in KingCo.

“That’s one of our biggest things. Defense wins the game,” said the coach. “To win a game you really only need to play offense once and play defense 24 times. My philosophy is big on defense, however, this is the first year we’ll be running some new offensive plays. That will be exciting, to see our hitters, and be able to see them get some plays and with our setters.”

Lazar said the program as a whole has grown, but she has a smaller varsity roster this fall, so her focus has been from the beginning on community.

“Really one of my goals is to get that sportsmanship award again this year,” said Lazar. “I want to be more about this team and to make it a place where people want to come, not that we hate going to that school because their crowd is terrible. We want it to be about community and building our own.”

The team has some goals of their own, on the more tangible side of things.

“Honestly, their goal is to place at state this year,” said the coach. “For me, it’s one game at a time, one day at a time.”

The Kangs will get an early taste of how everything comes together during a non-conference match against a team from Jueanu, Alaska. Then they will play in a tournament at Juanita High School on Sept. 17.

Lake Washington will play it’s first home game of the regular season against Mount Si on Sept. 14 – the game circled on the Kangs calendars.

“We’d like to unsettle the top seeded team this year,” said Lazar. “The top teams in our league are usually Mount Si and Mercer Island and really one game at a time, but Mount Si is the game we’d really like to win.”

The team will play at Interlake on Sept. 12 in the first conference game of the season.