With state championships in several sports and IHSA and Catholic League titles in a few more, Fenwick has a rich athletic history.

Boys volleyball hasn’t added much to that tradition, but third-year coach Katie Kujawa aims to change that.

“Absolutely,” Kujawa said. “I’m a Fenwick grad, I played volleyball. I have kind of high standards as far as what teams should be doing.”

The Friars already have made strides, going from 1-23 the season before she took over to 8-12 last spring. But the work’s far from over.

“(A) .500 (record) overall would be my goal,” Kujawa said. “I’d love to finish in the top half of the Chicago Catholic League. We’ve pretty consistently, the last couple years, been finishing seventh of nine.”

But there’s no shortage of optimism this season, and no shortage of numbers, either.

Kujawa was caught off guard when 50 boys showed up for tryouts for the varsity and frosh-soph teams. “I could have had a freshman team if I had a freshman coach,” she said.

The lower-level interest bodes well for the future, but Fenwick also has the experience to make some noise now.

In the mix for starting jobs are senior setter Leo Galvez-Rolden, senior outside hitters Connor Kramer and Jimmy Tardella, sophomore middle hitter David Suwada, junior middle hitter Stephen Mizera, sophomore outside hitter Kris Jablonski and junior right-side hitter Nate Holterman.

Galvez-Roldan, who’ll run the Friars’ 5-1 offense, is in his third season as a varsity starter. With Jablonski, he’s also one of two Fenwick players with club experience.

“He runs the court very well,” Kujawa said. “He’s really smart.”

Kramer is “just naturally pretty strong,” his coach said. “A good blocker, a really good passer.”

Tardella moves into the lineup after being a varsity reserve last season, while Suwada is on track to be a four-year varsity regular and at 6-foot-6, offers an imposing presence in the middle.

Holterman, promoted to the varsity to play defense last season, “has improved tremendously,” according to Kujawa and was rewarded with added playing time.

Jablonski earned promotion from the JV team thanks to his exceptional defense, while Mizera moves up to the varsity and from outside to middle.

Kujawa hopes the mix is the right one to cure the problems that kept last year’s team under .500.

“Consistency (is) the biggest problem we had,” she said. “If you looked at our scores, we went to three games a lot of matches and lost. … Our passing would start hurting us, not playing all the way through.

“Part of it is discipline. They’ve had kind of an adjustment from the previous coach to me. They haven’t been pushed to achieve as much.”

That is changing. Kujawa appreciates what her team’s multisport athletes bring to the table: Suwada plays basketball, Kramer and Holterman are on the soccer team and Galvez-Roldan is a diver.

But the prep volleyball powers all have rosters loaded with club players and Kujawa hopes that will become more the norm at Fenwick as well.

If that happens, the Friars might have to make some room in the trophy case for volleyball hardware to go along with all the rest.