To escape the hustle and bustle of everyday high school life, Pleasant Home senior Caitlin Jernigan turns to the sport she has grown to love over five seasons — volleyball.

Jernigan, who is one of eight seniors on the Lady Eagles’ varsity squad, began playing the sport during its inaugural season at PHS when she was a seventh grader.

A broken wrist caused Jernigan to miss her ninth grade season, two years ago.

“It gets me away from all of the other distractions,” Jernigan said when asked if she liked the sport.

Although her favorite sport of all time is softball, Jernigan said she’s pretty excited about the season.

“I just don’t want it to end,” she said. “I’m going to cry the very first game and the very last game — it’s going to be bad.

“But in between then, I’ll be good,” she said.

Jernigan will be the setter for the Lady Eagles this season and she said she describes her style of play as that of “not stopping until I get tired.”

“It’ll be fun,” she said about being the setter. “I usually get down on myself when I mess up, but this year I’m going to try to not get so made and stay positive.”

Pleasant Home is in Class 1A, Area 2 with Kinston and Florala this season and could, if all goes well, gain a berth to play in Montgomery at the Super Regional in October.

“We got them,” Jernigan said about FHS and KHS.

She said her and the other seniors are especially looking forward to play Kinston, as it is PHS’ main rival. Kinston is also the Lady Eagles’ main rival in softball.

Jernigan said the team set two goals this season and they are to “stay positive and let God do all the work.”

The other seven seniors on the team are Ashley Copeland, Abigail Kelley, Courtney Slaughter, Kim Reed, Raven Woods, Taylor Godwin and Emily Byrd.

When asked why she likes volleyball, Jernigan said at the time she thought it would become a sport she likes.

“I figured it’d be something new I could do and that I’d like it,” she said. “I love playing it.”

Jernigan and the rest of her senior and underclassmen teammates will open their season at the Kinston Tournament on Sat., Aug. 25.

Jernigan is the daughter of Tina and David Jernigan of Andalusia.