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Tiger volleyball team off to slow start, dropping first three matches
Judging the value of experience for high school athletes can be a tricky thing if that experience did not come on the actual field of competition at the high school level.
Take the Brentsville District varsity girls volleyball team.
On the one hand, seven out of 10 of its members played club ball during the off-season.
But only four players from the 2007 varsity team are back this year at a time when defending undefeated Northwestern District champion Millbrook is returning virtually its whole squad.
According to coach Bill Lynn, his team, featuring six juniors and four seniors, should at least be better than its 0-3 start that includes two district losses.
“These girls played club ball all winter long, and I thought they would have been able to finish the games off in better fashion than what I was seeing,” said the fifth-year skipper Tuesday.
He particularly mentioned Brentsville’s Aug. 28 match against Millbrook, when his team was deadlocked 16-16 against the Pioneers in the first game before Millbrook put on a 9-1 run to end the game.
“They know they just have to go out and not make mistakes. That’s always been our killer,” Lynn said of Brentsville’s key to winning against quality opponents. “We can play our game, but we can’t make a lot of plays in a row to make points.”
Senior outside hitters Christine Herndon and Paige Knowlton are two of the most vital parts of the Brentsville roster.
The 5-foot-11 Herndon entered the Virginia High School League record books twice in 2007 by keeping 97.5 percent of her 202 serves (197 total) in play, while Knowlton finished second on the team with 110 digs, just 15 behind graduated libero Julianna Willis.
“No one else was in the hundreds,” Lynn noted.
The two are stationed as strong-side hitters and bring slightly different styles to the court.
Lynn reckons Herndon is a power hitter who smacks downward at the ball thanks to a good vertical leap, but she is served best with a solid setup.
Knowlton’s ability to react to any situation works well with her general quickness.
“She doesn’t need as perfect a [setup] as Christine does because Paige is such a good all-around athlete; she can adjust to what she gets,” he said, later calling Knowlton “probably the best all-around player on the team.”
It is co-captains Herndon and senior libero Lauren Truitt who are charged with leading Brentsville, though.
“They’re doing their job,” said the coach. “Christine’s serving good and putting away some really nice hits when she gets the good set. Truitt’s digging balls left and right. She’s playing the back row like I knew she could.”
Truitt, Herndon and Knowlton are joined by junior setter Sammi Gough as the remaining members of the fourth-place 2007 team.
Senior middle Courtney Holloway earned a promotion from junior varsity, along with junior Johanna Hummel, both of whom are competing for playing time this year as starters.
Whoever gets it on a full-time basis, even if it’s back-row defensive specialist Alyssa Beach, who substitutes for middles, will need to consistently feed Herndon, Knowlton and the other Brentsville attackers with smooth assists.
“I just want accurate sets,” Lynn said. “Move fast, get to the ball and make accurate sets and the type of offense we run, when we’re on front row, we’re asking them to be the foundation to blocking the other team’s left side.”
Hummel and Herndon are the two tallest members of the team with Holloway the next closest at 5 foot 9, meaning there are no 6-foot-tall centers this season for Lynn to put in front of the net.
But from what he preaches to his team, that should not make a difference to success or failure.
“I don’t do too much adjusting,” Lynn said. “I just live with what I have and hope that they jump all the time. I tell the girls all the time, ‘It doesn’t matter how tall you are, it’s how high you can jump.’”
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