summer volleyball- week 3

Monday of week 3 started off very slowly. Players were dragging in practice and with Vern's workouts. At the end of the session on Monday, we talked to the players about bringing everything they had to practice and leaving it all on the floor. We have many inexperienced varsity players next season and it was important that they knew that you cannot take plays off at the varsity level and expect to be successful. Each and every play is important because many volleyball games are won and lost by a two and three points. Needless to say, they came back the next day and the rest of this week ready to work hard. One of the nice things about this group is that they are excellent listeners and all we have to do is say things once. I think this trait will come in handy in big matches this season.
We concentrated on ball control this week and being a smart volleyball player. Many coaches just tell their players what to do and don't explain why they are doing it. At Venice, we want our players to know why a ball spins a certain way and what opposing players tend to do in certain situations. I can best explain this with an example. When I was a young gun playing doubles on the beaches of Santa Cruz, the older guys always used to knock us off. They were slower and could not jump that well and they took forever to stretch out before a match (I understand that now). I could never figure out how they did it. They won because they were smarter players. They knew that the young players just wanted to go up and spike it as hard as they could and show everyone how high they could jump so the older guys would situate themselves on defense on how to handle it. But the older players had to use their brain and make different types of cut shots to hit where the other team was not. They also had to have outstanding ball control to make up for their other physical weaknesses. So the question is, how does a team beat another team with more talent? The answer is outstanding ball control, make less mistakes then the other team, work harder, and be smarter more knowledgeable vb players. That is our playing philosophy in a nutshell. It does not matter who knows it or what other teams read this blog but it is a lot harder to do then just talking about it.
For the last 3 weeks, we have been breaking down skills to the smallest detail especially in the early part of each session. Our focus in summer is the individual over team play which consequently (big word) makes team play better. Not that i know how to make a cake but it is like it. You have to have all the ingredients for the cake to turn out right. If one ingredient is missing, then the cake suffers. Players get better in their prospective positions and and when all the players come together, the cake comes out of the oven and you get what you get. Today, we took a peak into the oven to see our defense and offense as we put some things together. I can tell you that things are coming together well and we are very excited to open the season in 61 days. I'll bet that you did not know that I am so philosophical!
On a lighter note, Jay and I brought in 400 water balloons that 2 girls filled up during practice who were on the Injured Reserve today (Thanks Hannah Revels and Aubrey Court!). At the end of practice, we snuck out to the football field and bombed the football players. The only problem was that word must have leaked out because the football players all had eggs and were ready. I will let you imagine how that went. Over and out!

Summer workouts - week 2

Week 2 is now over for the girls of Venice. We had to improvise a little bit because the TeePee was the sight for the Florida Police Olympics volleyball venue on Wed, Thurs, and Fri. Police forces come from all over the state to play and the volleyball team keeps score, referees, judges the lines, etc. Some teams are very good and some are not. The police also donates to the Spiker volleyball club as well. It is awesome to see our kids generously donate their time to a good cause.
Monday and Tuesday were normal days like what I spoke about last week . On Wed and Thurs, the older kids went over to the hot, steamy, non airconditioned south gym. You drip sweat one minute after stepping through the doors like maybe some our our older alumni remember. We concentrated soley on defense and blocking. Blocking is a skill that most high schools are not very good at and it is one area that we want to improve in as I think it will be one of our strengths next year because we have a lot of height the next few years that we have not seen in awhile. After the serve, blocking is a team's 1st defense against the attack and a great block usually results in a big momentum swing and for those of you who have been around the sport for awhile knows that momentum swings rule this sport.
Our two strongest blockers, Jillian Allen and Whitney Steranko have been leading the pack for some others who are getting better on a daily basis. Morgan Shattuck has the highest touch on the team at 8'9.5" and is getting better mostly because her confidence is gaining, 6'3 Katie Paschke may be our most improved since last season, and 6'2 incoming freshmen Bianca Echtler has been making some huge strides. Bianca is very coachable as she looks our coaches in the eye everytime and does exactly what we say as we make adjustments to her game. Others are doing well but these folks really stuck out this week and anytime that you are competing for spots on a team, you must "stick out" from the rest of the pack. Our strength trainer, Vern Gambetta, has been focusing on building a solid core for the underclassroom and a lot of jumping exercises for the upper classemen. You can visit his sight at www.gambetta.com . If you are a VHS vb alumni who went through the volleyball program and played as a senior, please register on our site and tell us a little bit about yourself or if you know some of your teammates who have not heard about this site, let them know. Go big green!

Batt wins!!!!!!

Batt wins! If I had a dime for every time that I have heard that statement. You voted for the greatest outside hitter to ever roam the TeePee and the results are in. Batt had 40% of the votes as she edged out two Florida Southern players, Danielle Durham with 30% and Misti Neutzling with 16%.

Batt was and still is an amazing player. In high school, she led her team to the 1st ever State Championship in any sport at VHS. She was the MVP of the 1998 State Final 4, she was the Class 5A Player of the Year, and the only VHS volleyball player to ever win the Florida Gatorade Player of the Year! After receiving a full scholarship to play for the University of Kentucky, she started all four years for the Wild Cats and still holds kill records for the SEC school. Kristen is now not only one of the volleyball assistants for her Alma Mater, she plays on the AVP with Cardinal Mooney rival, Meghan Wallin. You can find their website at www.spikekey.com . BTW- Wallin was the last person to beat the Indians at the TeePee during the regular season (Setember 19, 2001). Batt competed in Huntington Beach, Ca this past weekend. Huntington Beach is one of the legendary AVP tour stops and draws thousands of people along with NBC to cover the tournament.
It was an honor to coach Kristen as she was not only one of the best athletes I have ever coached but one of the most hard working. Her work ethic was second to none and anytime the best player on your team is the hardest worker, usually that team ends up doing something very special. The thing that makes me the proudest while working with Kristen was not her play on the court but the way she ALWAYS gave credit to her teammates and the coaching staff in the her numerous newspaper articles and interviews with tv reporters. She always wanted to take the spotlight off of herself and give it to others. In my opinion, she is the most dominant player since I have been around (1994) in this area to ever wear a volleyball uniform. She hit harder from the backrow then most players hit from the front row and that is why she holds the vhs record for most kills in a seaon with 572. That record will NEVER be broken. It is an honor to have Kristen as one of my assistants now as she is a huge ingredient in the success of the VHS volleyball program. Congrats to Kristen for winning the poll. Now we will see who is the greatest middle hitter to ever play at VHS.

Summer Volleyball - week 1

It has been a great first week of summer volleyball. We have over 40 prospective players working out with us in the gym. The new incoming freshmen have done an excellent job of being on time and working hard to learn about how we do things in the volleyball program. I think they would all say that that we focus on doing the little things right and we try to train harder then any team in the state (the soreness usually goes away after a week or two). Our schedule looks like this; At 6:45 AM, our setters come in and focus on footwork and perform many setting drills til around 7:30. The hitters arrive at 7:00 AM to get the gym ready and begin their warm ups concentrating on good contacts with their hand to the ball then they focus on perfecting their approach through a series of different drills. At 7:30, setters and hitters combine to practice new plays and develop timing much the way a quarterback and his receivers work together. At 8:00, others and incoming freshmen come in and we do some team chemistry things before they start their warm ups. At this time, we all start with whatever we are working on that day til about 9:45 AM. Much of this week has been devoted to volleyball movements without a ball to get a solid foundation in place with new kids and reinforce it with the upper classmen. Monday, we did a lot of ball control and blocking, Tues was devoted to passing and serving and Weddnesday was all defense and floor movements. We don't do a whole lot of offense in the latter part of the day b/c we take care of that stuff in the morning. We also want to make sure that the incoming freshmen learn how develop ball control before offense comes into play. We have implemented quite a few new drills this summer and I think our players are enjoying the variety. At 9:45, Vern Gambetta comes in and works speed, agility, plyometrics for jumping, and the core muscle group. Some of our returners like Jillian Allen, Dorothy Rahal, Witney Steranko, and Taylor Capasso have all stepped up to take leadership positions as they all have different great leadership qualities and know how things are suppose to work. They have been extremely encouraging on and off the court and have led by example on the court. Our 9th and 10th graders seem to be very experienced and are very willing to learn. All in all, it has been an awesome week and all of us coaches including Jay, Stefanie, and Vern cannot get over how far along this group is so early in the summer to prepare for next year's demanding schedule.

Personal thoughts

I have been in a reflective mood today on my last day off before high school summer conditioning starts up next week. What a week we had in youth volleyball at the 15th annual Wild west camp. It was truly amazing to see the way youth volleyball has really exploded in Venice. We had over 80 kids ranging from kindergarten to 8th graders having a great time at camp. It is amazing to look back over the years to see how far ahead some of our younger kids are compared to back then. I remember the 1st annual when we had about 20 kids and went from 8 AM to 4 PM monday through Friday. It was pretty exhausting. I want to thank our camp counselors who made the week a total success. Jillian Allen, Whitney Steranko, Dorothy Rahal, Kaylee Ream, Ashley Graf, Jessica Costanzo, Brittany Burrows, and Kelsey McNamee. Coach Lanham and myself were so impressed with the way they handled themselves throughout the week. They were role models that that our campers looked up to each day. They were extremely positive and energetic. Whitneys wacky wierdo's came up big in the last match against Jessica's Hot Tamales to take the the camp championship While Ashley's Hippies won the spirit award. This camp is all about getting young girls to learn to love to play the sport of volleyball and have a passion for it. It was really cool to watch our counselors keep their teams up and energetic when their team was struggling. I think it was one of our best camps ever because of how well the kids responded to the coaches. To some, it was their first ever experience to be on the other side of the fence (coaching). Our VHS players and those going to the next level will be better volleyball players because of their coaching experience. Dorothy Rahal keeps telling me that after she graduates, she is going to come back to Venice and take my coaching job because I will really be "an old man then". I just keep telling her to watch out for the senior skit!!!! I can't wait to pour my heart into our new team and start Summer Volleyball on Monday!

Greatest outside hitter to ever play at Venice H.S?