In September 2008, the volleyball team at Bend’s Trinity Lutheran School made its varsity debut at a tournament for Central Oregon freshman teams hosted by Crook County High in Prineville.

The performance that day of the “Founding Sisters,” as Saints coach Greg Clift refers to that inaugural team, belied their collective inexperience.

“Their highlight was, they almost beat the Mountain View freshman team,” recalls Greg Clift, Trinity Lutheran’s volleyball coach and athletic director.

This season, on Oct. 14, Trinity Lutheran hosted Triad of Klamath Falls in a Class 1A Mountain Valley League contest. The Saints swept the Timberwolves, 26-24, 25-21, 25-21, for the first league win in their two years as members of the MVL.

“Every single one of us was shocked because we didn’t know what was happening,” senior outside hitter Andrea Anaya remembers. “Then we started screaming. It was the biggest high ever.”

The hours spent practicing and bonding — and playing hard, regardless of outcome — proved their worth.

“It feels great (to win a league game),” says Anaya. “It was a reward for all of our hard work.”

Encouraged by schoolmates to play, Anaya joined the team as a freshman as one of the Founding Sisters, with no volleyball experience to her name.

”It was a way to bond with girls that was really attractive to me,” she says. “It was a learning period for the first couple of years.”

Trinity Lutheran School, located at Butler Market Road and 27th Avenue in northeast Bend, was founded in 1959 but did not offer all four grades of high school (nine through 12) until 2007.

The private school, affiliated with the Trinity Lutheran Church, in 2008 was sanctioned for high school volleyball play by the Oregon School Activities Association. The Saints’ home gymnasium, built in 2005, doubles as the church’s worship center.

Demographically, volleyball was a natural fit as an OSAA sport at Trinity Lutheran. The high school currently educates 44 students, 28 of whom are girls. Eighteen of those girls play volleyball (either varsity or JV), giving Trinity Lutheran players a strong sense of identity.

“(Volleyball) makes us feel more important with the school and the sport,” Anaya explains.

Trinity Lutheran offers athletic opportunities for middle school students (grades five through eight) in volleyball, basketball, swimming, track and cross-country. Many middle school students, however, choose to attend high schools with higher enrollment, reducing the number of prospective experienced volleyball players in the high school.

To keep the Saints’ numbers up, Clift has tapped into the influx of foreign exchange students who attend Trinity, most of whom have no volleyball experience. Currently, students from China, Japan, South Korea, Denmark and Switzerland play for the Saints. Clift has also tapped into his own family for varsity players: Calah Clift is a senior setter, and Megan Clift is a freshman outside hitter.

Trinity Lutheran fielded full varsity and JV squads for the first time in program history this season.

“Volleyball has been a great draw,” Trinity Lutheran principal Hanne Krause says.

Clift, a former football player at Bend’s Mountain View High and currently a physical education teacher at Trinity Lutheran, got his start in coaching with Trinity’s middle school volleyball team in 2003. He remembers conducting three practices on the front lawn of his Bend home before the team attended the Christian Schools Classic tournament in Bremerton, Wash.

“We found out where we were at,” he says with a laugh, noting the considerably higher skills and superior teamwork of Trinity’s opponents at that Washington tournament.

Clift applied for and received OSAA sanction for a volleyball team at Trinity Lutheran, then set about creating a schedule as an independent program. Unable to find opportunities to play teams from larger schools, Clift scheduled matches against Paisley and Central Christian of Redmond in 2008 and 2009 before Trinity Lutheran joined the Mountain Valley League in 2010. Members of the league include Paisley, Butte Falls, Gilchrist and Prospect.

Fielding enough players for a team has been a challenge. The Saints’ 2010 roster included just six players- the minimum required for volleyball — before middle blocker Abbey Carpenter became ill with viral meningitis and was out for the season. (Clift successfully recruited another player so that Trinity could play out its schedule.)

As with schools almost everywhere, Trinity Lutheran is learning the true monetary cost of an athletics program. Gate receipts, donations and “pay-for-play” fees help the Saints offset the costs of everything from game officials to travel to uniforms and equipment.

“We don’t have the money to do any of the stuff we’re doing right now,” Clift says with a laugh.

Wins have been difficult to come by so far, but the Trinity Lutheran volleyball players have no lack of enthusiasm.

“Their attitude is infectious,” Clift says.

In addition to volleyball, Trinity Lutheran offers equestrian (through Oregon High School Equestrian Teams) and nordic skiing (in conjunction with Mountain View High School). Also this school year, Trinity Lutheran will field OSAA-sanctioned girls basketball and girls golf teams for the first time.

More sports offerings could be in the school’s future.

“When you get enough interest and numbers, then you add the sport,” Clift says. “That’s how we started volleyball.”

If you go

What: Central Christian at Trinity Lutheran

When: Today, 6 p.m.

Where: Trinity Lutheran School in Bend

Records: Trinity Lutheran (1-13 Class 1A Mountain Valley League), Central Christian (3-5 Class 1A Big Sky League)