Faith Academy volleyball turning first day of training camp into team bonding
CAPTION: Junior Bosley Kuker is expected to help anchor the back row of defensive specialists this season for the Lady Flames. Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro
The Faith Academy of Marble Falls volleyball program is turning the first day of two-a-days into a team bonding exercise.
The players will arrive at 10 a.m. for the first practice Monday, Aug. 5, and not leave until 2:30 p.m. At noon, the players will eat lunch and hit the court from 12:30-2:30 p.m. before ending the day.
Head coach Erin Sawyer, who is entering her second year in the position, said she is following the same routine she had on the first day a year ago.
“What I want for our program is for our girls to be together and do things as a team,” she said.
She is expecting 27 players in grades 9-12 to be in attendance, which means having a junior varsity squad. Creating opportunities that allow all players to be together is important to Sawyer for one big reason.
“I think very highly of my seniors, my upperclassmen,” she said. “I’m excited about that (number of players). It means a lot for our program. When I first took over the junior varsity (about three years ago), I barely had seven girls. We had seven or eight for the varsity. Currently, our sophomores and incoming freshmen are a lot larger classes. I love the new girls coming in. It’s fresh blood for the program.”
The team returns senior setters Abbye Blackington and Hadley Shipley and senior outside hitter Jillian Martin. The junior returners are middle blocker Natalie Weems and Bosley Kuker.
The Lady Flames will spend the first practice of each morning working on fundamentals of the sport such as serve-receive, passing and setting. The second sessions will be for transitions and adjusting when the team is out of system. In other words, if one of the setters digs the ball, who is going to step in to set up a teammate for a kill to end a rally?
“We’re touching all the bases,” the coach said. “Once I figure out who’s going to be varsity and junior varsity, we’ll fine-tune that stuff.”
Sawyer said year two is about “growing.”
“We’re still trying to establish our program and grow it the right way,” she said. “I’m so looking forward to this season with those three seniors at the forefront. I see nothing but good things. Natalie is still a good solid player at middle blocker with Bosley on the back row.”
That’s why she called having a junior varsity “huge” even though Sawyer will also coach that squad since an assistant coach wasn’t found.
“We’ll prep JV for varsity next year,” she said. “I can play for the future. It’ll be more of a plug and play.”
Sawyer, who also is the director of the Hill Country Aces select program, created a team that had just the Lady Flames on it that included Blackington, Martin and Shipley. That’s another reason why she is optimistic about this season.
“(They’ve) been playing year around,” the coach said. “They’re doing all the extra things.”
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