The ball floats high in the air.

It's almost as if it were moving in slow motion.

Saugus junior Jaclyn Clark gets into position, leaps up and blasts the ball over the net with her right hand.

Chalk it up as another kill for her and the Saugus girls volleyball team.

Standing at 5 feet 9 inches tall, Clark led her team in kills last year and finished second in the Foothill League in kills per game.

"She's only 5'9" but she doesn't think of herself as 5'9"," says Saugus head coach Zach Ambrose. "She never wants to be thought of as a small outside, because she plays as big as anybody."

The 16-year-old outside hitter started for the Centurions her freshman year, where she quickly established herself as a marquee player.

As the only freshman on the roster that year, she finished second on the team with 233 kills and led the team with 280 digs.

"Going in as a freshman, I was definitely intimidated and didn't want to make anyone mad because I was a freshman," Clark says. "But I knew I had to help my team out."

It's safe to say her mindset has changed a bit in the past two years.

"Her confidence level has gone through the roof," Ambrose says. "You wont find anyone more confident than her."

Now, she has asserted herself as a leader and a motivator for the emerging young team.

"I like to take on that responsibility because I know, since our team is so young, we always have to work together. I like that I can bring my team together and that they can always look up to me no matter what."

Coming off a 22-10-1 season and a fourth-place finish in the Foothill League, Saugus ranks No. 10 in this week's CIF-Southern Section Division I rankings. With all of its top players, including Clark, returning this year, the Centurions look to challenge for a league title.

The team does feature a lot of sophomores and juniors in key positions, but most of them have at least a year of experience playing on varsity together.

"I feel like our team connects so well, even if we are still pretty young," Clark says. "We all want to win so it's helping us with our drive. Our team's pretty good."

Connecting as a team is something Clark's always liked about volleyball.

Before high school, she tried dancing and softball, but neither worked out because she wasn't able to let loose with her outgoing personality. It wasn't until a year before high school that her older sister Ashley encouraged her to join a volleyball club.

"I just thought it was really exciting because you got to play with a team and there were so many different positions and people did so many different things that I liked," Clark says.

Hitting was always the position she liked the most, but she does pride herself on playing good defense, hence the fact that she led her team in both kills and digs last year.

"I definitely feel better when my whole team is working hard and I'm putting a ball away and scoring points," she says. "It's just a better feeling for me."

It didn't take her long to catch on to the sport. She always considered herself an athletic person, so it was just a matter of finding good coaching and guidance.

"I was surprised with the poise she played with her freshman year," Ambrose says. "She never let the pressure get to her."

It was Ambrose and the rest of the Saugus coaching staff that first steered Clark to the program.

Ashley, 20, played volleyball at Canyon High a few years earlier, but a combination of her family moving closer to Saugus and her knowledge of the coaching staff made the decision easy for Jaclyn.

She gives credit to her coaches for developing her game in the past couple years, but Ambrose says it's been her own hard work that has made her into the player she is now.

On top of the standard five practices a week and matches, she also works out a few times a week and breaks down film with her coaches to look for opportunities to improve her game.

"The younger players see where she is right now and they want to be there," Ambrose says. "They've seen the work she's had to do to get where she is."

It's all volleyball all the time for Jaclyn.

If she isn't playing or practicing, she's probably spending time with her teammates or watching football or volleyball on TV.

She hasn't received any official offers from college volleyball programs thus far, but Jaclyn intends to play at the next level.

Being the sports junkie that she is, she wants to attend an NCAA Division I school with big volleyball and football programs.

Next month, she'll pay a visit to Boise State University, which is one of many schools she's received letters of interest from. Others include University of Michigan, University of North Carolina and San Diego State University.

For now, she just wants to help her team win a 2010 Foothill League title.