Shelley goes from worst to first in the competitive 5A High Country Conference

SHELLEY – It wasn’t that long ago that the 5A District 6 volleyball standings were as easy to predict as snow in December.

In recent years, Bonneville would likely be the team to beat with Idaho Falls challenging for the district title and state berths.

At the other end, Shelley was just trying to get a win.

That’s not the case in 2025.

“I feel like we have improved immensely the last few years,” Russets’ coach Cami Empey said last week after they swept conference power Bonneville.

Shelley enters this week atop the conference standings with a 4-0 record and gets a good test tonight against 4-1 Idaho Falls.

“We’ve really focused on skill and progress and having a better mental game,” Empey said. “These girls have matured a lot and they’ve gotten a lot better … They want to win and be the best, so that’s what we’re going for.”

The program took a big step last season, finishing a respectable 17-19-1 and 4-6 in the competitive High Country Conference.

That comes after two consecutive 0-10 conference seasons in 2022 and 2023.

Empey is familiar with the conference, having been an assistant at Bonneville and Idaho Falls before taking over the Russets last season.

“Shelley didn’t have a ton of success in terms of wins,” she said. “They were very successful with individual athletes, but the last two years the main focus has been on putting them together as a team and piecing it all together correctly.”

Empey noted the Bonneville match was a good microcosm of the season, where the offense clicked and the defense has shown improvement on the way to an impressive 25-20, 25-20, 25-19 win over the Bees.

Empey coached a club team in the summer of 2024 that featured the Shelley girls. She was eventually asked to apply for the head coaching job at the high school and has been working on the team’s improvement ever since.

“It’s been so fun,” she said.

The Russets have five seniors and four juniors. Empey said she saw the team’s potential early on.

“You put these individuals on any team and they’re going to be successful,” she said. “It was a matter of getting them to do it together.”

“In the summer we built a lot of trust in each other,” added senior outside hitter Jaida Cook.

“During the summer it seemed like we just connected a lot faster than we did last year,” Cook noted. “I expected us to get better … that’s been a goal for the five of us (seniors) since eighth grade. We want to go to state this year.”

Of course there are still plenty of matches left to play, including tonight against Idaho Falls, but Cook said she likes the direction the team is headed.

Idaho Falls is No. 1 in the most recent coaches’ state poll, with Shelley tied for second and Hillcrest ranked No. 4.

A team going from being winless in conference play to chasing a title and state tournament berth in just two years would be a huge turnaround for the Russets.

But the only thing for certain it that the district tournament will be intense with potentially four state-ranked teams playing for the top prize.