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.