The middle school girls volleyball season has begun! Their first game was Tuesday, January 2nd at Bayfield High School. Before their game, they only had two short weeks of practice. They could not even have practice every day because both high school teams had basketball practice. It would be difficult to have basketball practice with a volleyball net in the way, and it would be hard to practice volleyball with a bunch of basketball players in the way. And if you need further evidence of the difficulty of trying to allow multiple disciplines access to the same training space, let’s just consider that tracking the ball would be harder if there were five different balls in the air at once.

Even with all of the practice complications, the girls did very well. They left Bayfield with the win. Both the seventh and eighth-grade teams were victorious. The eighth-grade team won all of their sets. The seventh-grade team won only two of their three sets, but that’s pretty impressive given that there are seven sixth-graders on the team and only one seventh-grader. The sixth-graders did a fantastic job going up against girls a year older than they.  Sixth grader Faith Whitmore-Langley is making quite a name for herself as a strong server.  On the line, Whitmore-Langley scored seven points in a row!  The sixth graders were not the only ones to have a good game. Seventh grader Beau Reijo served for seven points in a row as well.  Of course, strong, consistent serves are only one of many plays that helps a team come out victorious.  Volleyball is a team sport and it takes all the athletes working together to remain atop the scoreboard.  All of the other players did a fantastic job and Coach Darla mentioned that they were playing great as a team.

The younger girls are not the only new additions to the team. Beth Hoagland, South Shore’s science teacher, has joined the team as an assistant coach.  Hoagland is no stranger to the athletic arena as she is also the assistant coach to cross country and middle school track teams, so it was an easy transition to another sport. Even though Hoagland is already part of the program, she still has never been associated with volleyball before, not even in her own high school years. “I have had fun so far this season, but I am still learning about this sport. There are some things that I don’t know yet, but Darla does a great job coaching the girls.” Hoagland took the position because middle school volleyball needed an assistant coach and she had the time to do it. She jumped right in having no prior experience with volleyball, and has discovered that she really enjoys it. She likes that she gets to watch everyone improve.  “I can really see the benefits of the drills that we do in practice to help the girls in the game.”  Turns out too, that the learning and growing never stops.  Beth Hoagland has learned so much and undoubtedly, will some day be a great coach.