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It is a year of firsts for the Northwest girls volleyball team.

With a new coach and a few key freshman contributions, the Jaguars (7-0) are off to their best start in school history after Thursday's straight-game victory over Rockville.

"It is nice to see a fast start like that," said Northwest athletics director Jim Tapley. "Leadership transition, whether it's a National Football League, college or high school coach, takes awhile to get the kids where you need them to be. It helps a lot when you have competitive success."

The Jaguars' unbeaten record halfway through the season is surprising, but they have yet to face their biggest tests. With matches against perennial Montgomery County powers Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Quince Orchard, Gaithersburg and Poolesville in the coming weeks, they will have a chance to prove they belong among the county's elite.

"Everyone is high-energy," said first-year head coach Rob Smith. "Everyone's playing well. We're talking, playing all the way around and we should be fine [the rest of the year]."

Smith, who previously coached boys, girls and coed teams elsewhere, has made an instant impact at the Germantown school. He's brought an ability to relate with players, family-like coaching philosophies, and team-building activities off the court, such as team dinners.

"We definitely have a really good coach," said senior captain Jayani Basnayaka. "He does a lot more drills and he asks us what we want to work on instead of him always wanting to work on us. So we give him suggestions on what we think we should work on."

Tapley echoed Basnayaka's sentiments, but is more impressed with Smith's personality than the team's early success on the court.

"He is a very solid person and very good at listening, and he sees the big picture," Tapley said. "When you meet him you [notice] how conscientious he is about the kids and school."

Two factors in Northwest's success have been the mixture of youth and veterans and the influx of club players on the team. Led by junior all-arounder Jessica Warner and freshmen Rachel Townsend and Tamara Bell, the Jaguars have six players who play volleyball outside of school.

"We have really good incoming players that played Metro [American] and [Montgomery Village Sports Association]," said Basnayaka. "It's good to know that when we go against hard teams and we have all these players."

"The team is just working together and we're becoming a team." added Townsend. "[Senior leadership] helps. They support you and keep you going."

Despite their tallest player standing only 5-foot-10, the Jags' game was clicking on all cylinders against Rockville, as their outstanding service game collected 16 aces. Warner and senior defensive specialist Hanna Yi finished with five aces apiece, while Townsend had four aces to make things difficult on the Rams' receive-and-pass game.

"Even though our girls are 5-8, 5-9, 5-7," said Smith, "they get up over the net and do a good job."

Rockville coach Cindy Hollies was impressed with the Jaguars' overall game and hopes her team can learn from the experience.

"We have been struggling with teams that serve well," said Hollies. "I've got a couple of boys that will do some serving at them [in practice] so we will see if we can pick them up just a little bit more."

As for the rest Northwest's season, the Jaguars are confident they can make some noise down the stretch.

"We are super-excited," said Basnayaka. "No joke."