With the fall high school sports season on the horizon, the East Jackson Lady Eagles volleyball team is looking for improvement as the program enters its fourth season.
Last year, the Lady Eagles went 5-23, overall, an improvement over the 2-30 record they posted in 2008, but winless in area play.
“We realized coming in that we wouldn’t be able to build a strong team overnight; it takes time,” said coach Tim Thomas. “During the last two seasons we’ve tried to take things step by step, improving first one thing and then another and trying to establish a pattern of success. The first year we worked hard to build cohesion and a team mindset. Last year we saw great improvement in our defense and our serving.”
The result, Thomas said, was a team that was competitive every time it took to the floor. The Lady Eagles tripled the number of times they scored in the 20s.
“This year we’re hoping to see a much stronger offensive effort,” he said. “We’ve got a few girls who can pound the ball pretty hard; we’ve just got to get them as many hitting reps as possible in practice so they can hit well consistently.”
Thomas says his team has several challenges. It has just five returning varsity players, including seniors Brittany Smith, Kiersten Meehan and Jenna Dukes, along with juniors Rebekah Poponi and Haley Simmons.
The team also has very little experience at setter with the loss of senior Ansley Brooks last year.
“Losing Ansley Brooks in this position will be difficult to overcome, but we’ve got a couple of girls who have made great progress at setter over the summer,” Thomas said.
Another challenge is working out where players will fit into the team.
“Several of our girls are so diverse with their skills, it’s made it difficult to decide where we should use them,” Thomas explained.
But the team also has several positives on its side. The five returning players are all strong performers, Thomas said.
“They’re all good servers and hitters, and a couple of them are excellent on defense,” he said. “Our first six have the potential to be pretty good, but we’re going to need our subs to really step it up if we’re going to compete well.”
For more on this story, see Wednesday's edition of The Commerce News or The Jackson Herald.
