By: Mary Wilson Grist

    New head volleyball coach Amanda McCoy has been working hard over the summer and continuing into the season to redefine girls’ volleyball at Rockbridge. McCoy, who played volleyball at the division three college level has had nine years of head coach experience and sees great potential in the team.

“With the players on varsity, we have several returners and then several who
are new, so we are working to blend that,” said McCoy. “We are focusing a lot in practice and developing each girl’s basic skills. This team has a lot of potential. We just have to continue to work at it. I hope to continue to grow our numbers also so we are getting more girls involved from RCHS. I would also love to incorporate some of our boys into managerial
positions and possibly into a practice team for our ladies.”

Junior outside hitter Hannah Burch understands the work that is necessary to be successful on the high school level. Coming into the season, she acknowledged that the intensity level set during the summer, at the Penn State University team camp, in practice, and now following into the season, has been beneficial for the girls, both individually and as a team.

“We did a lot of conditioning over the summer and we still continue conditioning during practices, but it’s good because it’s just going to make us better,” said Burch. “We have the potential to do very well. We’re all very skilled. We have three sophomores, but they are very good. They’ve all played travel and know what the competition is.”

Sophomore Josie Elliott expressed the benefit of spending so much time together over the summer.

“I think [summer workouts] overall improved our skillset,” said Elliott. “We conditioned a lot to prepare for the season and worked on skillsets for games. We spent a lot of time playing volleyball, and the more time we spent together the better the playing became on the court.”

The time the team spent both on and off the court at workouts and camps helped carry a positive atmosphere into the season. Despite their hard work, the ‘Cats went 1-3 to open the season, falling to Fort Defiance, Robert E. Lee and Parry McCluer 3-1, but shutting out Broadway 3-0. The team was able to pick up momentum after a 3-2 win against Parry McCluer, followed by two 3-0 wins against Broadway and Alleghany.

Junior Keely Doyle sets the ball over the net at Parry McCleur on August 30. Photo courtesy of Stephanie Blevins.

Elliott stressed the importance of both her individual attitude and the attitude of the team moving into the rest of the season, knowing that no outcome is promised.

“We have to keep a positive attitude and keep looking forward,” said Elliott. “Sometimes game plans get changed or things don’t turn out how we expect them to, but what happened in the first few games isn’t defining our whole season. We just need to keep working together to move into the rest of the season.”