The Archers volleyball team serves up the season during a pandemic.
BY: ASHLEY BIUNDO
Editor-In-Chief
As another semester begins amidst a pandemic, sports have once again been affected. With all fall sports being moved to spring and games being closed to the public, the STLCC Volleyball team had to cope with the changes.
Head Coach Geoff Davis said that as long as they are on the court and playing, they are happy.
“As long as I’m on the court, as long as the girls are moving, and as long as we’re learning stuff, it really doesn’t matter to me when we’re doing it,” he said. “I just want them to be able to compete and I want them to be able to have strong competition where they can develop and grow their skills.”
Until further notice, most games are going to be closed to the public; no fans will be allowed to come. Davis said that they are utilizing a lot of video to broadcast games to even more fans, in and out of town.
“All the games are broadcast and since parents can’t come, it’s a different kind of vibe,” he said. “But we can see real good volleyball and now we can reach more people. [One game] the guy said there were 600-700 people watching our match. Because they got to see some they got to see a [game]. I’m hoping that more people will get exposed to it as a result and have an opportunity for these girls to get an opportunity to play in front of a larger crowd, so hopefully this pandemic passes.”
COVID-19 has affected volleyball’s seasons in many ways, not just moving to the spring semester. One would be, recruiting and only playing with a limited number of players. According to Davis, they didn’t have all the players that they thought they would have and it can be difficult playing with only nine players. In addition, the first two matches were cancelled.
“We really wanted those two matches to get a rhythm,” he said. “Because the third match was against the number one team in the country, it would have been nice to have played a couple of times.”
Davis said that the players are doing well and persevering. Although volleyball is pushing through their season, with limited practice time, Davis said that he hopes that his team stays healthy and does everything they can to stay that way.
“We [practice] now early in the morning; we’re just hoping that we can, with the numbers this year, as a result of just cancellations and we’re hoping that we can stay healthy. So we’re doing everything we can to do that,” he said. “So I’m hopeful that we’re on a down curve on this.”
With a pandemic there have been difficulties that the team faces during the season. Davis said the most difficult part is practice times being cut shorter.
“We’re trying to be more mindful of just how we prepare,” he said. “The interaction that we have on the court during practice, is limited to a certain amount of time. We have to do a lot of isolated drills, in shorter periods of time to 15-20 minutes. We moved our practice schedule from two hours to 90 minutes, in order to just try to wrap up the amount of things that we do.”
The team has to take more breaks during practice and according to Davis that has affected their ability to put in a lot.
“It’s kind of made us better because we’ve got to be smarter about the time that we know. And the girls seem to respond well,” he said. “Volleyball practices 6 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. So we’re in and out, first thing in the morning.”
Davis said that morning practices are good in two ways: the girls are up and ready for classes and focusing on coming to practice and hitting all they can with the limited time. Even though volleyball is playing during a pandemic, they have their own strengths and weaknesses. Davis said that the team has Division One Hitters and a mature sophomore class that is able to accomplish a lot.
“Their focus is really good and they come in, they work hard and work with a purpose. They get what they need to get done,” he said. “We’ve got some pretty strong leaders. We’ve had a number of kids that have gone on to play the four year schools here.”
Davis said that the team has a competitive Division Two schedule.
“I try to put them in front of 50 to 60% of the teams that are in the top 20 in the country because I want them to be ready for April. I want them to be ready for regionals and districts,” he said.
“And so having those competitions early allows us to see where we need to show some things with our players. It’s also given us an opportunity to kind of balance the court.”
Davis said that having a limited number of players is a weakness they are trying to overcome this season.
“We need more people. Somebody is going to get sick and we have to make a substitution and our middle because she got kind of ill,” he said.
“We had somebody that could step in who has never played middle before. If we can stay healthy, we’re going to be okay. Because we’re an athletic bunch of kids and we’re a pretty talented group. And the girls like each other; they get along very well. They’re all busy, busy, busy. So that has helped them focus their time and energy when they get there.”
Photos by Ashley Biundo.
