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!