Leopard volleyball starts its trek through the second round of district play on the road tonight against the Wylie Pirates at 6:30 p.m.

“We need to make sure we are ready to go,” head volleyball coach Jason Nicholson said. “This is going to be a big week for us, and make sure we are in a good position as far as district play goes.”

Currently sitting in second place in district 10-5A, the Leopards look to use this week as an opportunity to prepare for tough opponents to come. Next Tuesday the McKinney Lions come play the Lady Leopards here at the high school.

“You always say don’t look ahead, but we are kind of trying to get our brains focused on getting our play up to a specific level so we can be ready for next Tuesday as well,” Nicholson said.

The Pirates have a 4-3 record according to the Dallas Morning News, placing them in 4th place in the district. On Leopard Friday, the Leopards face the McKinney North Bulldogs who ended the first round of district play with a 2-5 record and sit in 6th place in the district.

“This week is kind of a build-up,” Nicholson said. “We have Wylie tonight and McKinney North on Friday, two matches that we should obviously handle fairly well. So it allows us the opportunity to kind of look ahead to some degree especially from a coaching standpoint.”

Going into the match against Wylie, the team hopes to play together and play well as a team.

“The plan for tonight is just to play as a team and strengthen team chemistry,” senior Sarah Langs said. “In practice we have been working on position-specific techniques.”

The game plan heading into McKinney North on Friday is similar.

“Against McKinney North we need to keep our level of play high to make sure we don’t play down to their level,” junior Lexi Smith said. “We also need to have a lot of energy and stay focused.”