WEST POINT — New Hope volleyball got off to a hot start in district play on Wednesday with a 3-0 win at local rivals West Point. The young Green Wave program showed some fight in the first two sets, but the experience of the Trojans saw them pull through in dominant fashion to win in straight sets.
“You can see some of it tonight in moments, and we are improving,” Trojans head coach Laura Lee Holman said after the win. “We still have some room to grow. We’re playing pretty well, still waiting for it all to come together. We had a great battle last night against Amory and saw some things we have to get fixed, but also saw some really good things. Our district is tough so I hope to see that level of focus to stay in the competitive mindset regardless of the scoreboard or momentum, doing what we need to do to keep the ball in the air.”
The Green Wave volleyball program is only two years old, beginning play in 2023. While volleyball brings an opportunity to expand athletics opportunities for girls at the school, West Point finds itself n the difficult situation of having to find its feet in one of the toughest divisions in the state. Lafayette was the 5A state champion last year, and New Hope, Corinth and Pontotoc often have competitive programs of their own.
Green Wave head coach Marquiss Burnett spoke after the game about some of the challenges he faces in trying to teach the game to players who hadn’t had the opportunity to play the sport previously.
“This is our second year so we’re just trying to get better,” Burnett said. “We’re trying to compete with teams that have established programs. We’re young and inexperienced playing against teams that have played since seventh grade and trying to catch up. They work hard and I know we’ll get there one day.”
Trojans head coach Holman knows a thing or two about getting a program off the ground as she was the head coach at New Hope back when their volleyball team first started playing in 2014. Back then it wasn’t exactly easygoing, but within a few years, the Trojans were playing in the Final Four of the state tournament.
“It takes a lot of working on fundamentals,” she said, reflecting on the challenges of starting a program. “There is so much to this game, and I’ve coached a lot of sports in my life, I’ve been fortunate to do that, and it always comes back to fundamentals. It takes work to put those to use in games, and they will. West Point has always had good athletics, they’ve always been able to compete and they can be a really strong program once they get some experience.”
Both Holman and Burnett spoke to the difficulty of their conference on newcomers to the game, and with so many young players the hope is that a high level of play pays dividends for junior varsity and even the freshman and sophomores breaking into the squad.
“We’re in probably the toughest 5A volleyball conference,” Burnett said. “We’re up against it with programs that have been around a decade or longer, so we’re getting the girls some experience against tough competition.”
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