This is an entry in my volleyball coaching log for 2016-17.
Spring Break has come and gone. We’re now into the “non-traditional season” where we are back to 20 hours per week.
Roster
We had a returning player quit at the beginning of the week, dropping our current active roster to 10. That’s not counting our grad student going only part-time this semester so she will be eligible in the Fall. The departure was unusual in that you don’t often see 2-year starters leave in the middle of Spring, but in the grand scheme of things we were not totally surprised. She said she basically doesn’t love it anymore.
We did get the commitment from the 2017 middle prospect I mentioned in my last update.That gets us up to five incoming freshmen, plus a transfer for the Fall. Obviously, that also helps pick up the slack from our latest departure. The head coach was thinking to bring in one more pin hitting transfer. Now that might be more of a MB/RS type player.
In other news, our top OH from last season finally got a diagnosis on her knee problems. The result is surgery, though not the sort expected to keep her from being ready for the Fall if everything works out.
Schedule
The player who quit was one of our two Middles, which put us in a bind. Our original plan was to play tournaments on March 25, April 1st, and April 22nd. We couldn’t see how that was going to work with just one MB and thin ranks on the pins as well. There aren’t really any rules about line-ups and stuff in the Spring, so our remaining middle can just stay permanently in, but that’s a lot to ask – especially when you add in travel. As a result, we decided to pull out of the first and third tournaments. We’re keeping the one for April 1st, though, as that’s the one we’re hosting. We’ll find a way to make it work – probably by spacing out when we play to give our one MB a break.
Our base plan for the five weeks of our Spring season is to practice Monday through Friday. If we have something on Saturday (like our home tournament) we take one day off to abide by the 2-days-off rule. The team also does strength and conditioning work three days per week.
Team Training
This week we did indoor team practices on Monday and Friday, with beach sessions on Tuesday and Thursday. Wednesday was off. Originally that was because we planned to play in a tournament on Saturday. When we had to cancel that, we scheduled some morning community service hours. So we still needed to give the team the midweek day off.
The beach sessions were of two different sorts. On Tuesday we broke the team into two groups of 5. They did a lot of ball-handling oriented work in the sand for about 90 minutes. On Thursday we just had them play beach doubles. We set up a schedule where most teams played three games to 21, with one team playing four. It was extremely windy, so the players faced real weather challenges aside from having to adapt to the difference surface, the smaller court, etc.
Because we are bringing in so many new players (6-7) in the Fall, we aren’t doing any real team play type work at this point. The focus instead is on ball-handling, improved reading and reacting on defense, and generally becoming more tenacious. The beach sessions are aimed at working in those areas, and we’re taking the same sort of attitude with what we do indoors. That means doing a lot of things like team pepper, serving and passing, and small-sided games.
