Sometimes the season doesn’t always start off on a hot streak.
Whether it be early injuries, issues with chemistry or just plain getting beaten, not everyone begins the year in sports with smooth sailing. For Starkville’s volleyball team, it’s a case of getting that vital experience for their younger players.
The Yellow Jackets lost seven seniors last season to graduation and left the task of building upon last year’s 14-11 finish to a group that returned only four starters. The crew began play on Aug. 1 in the MHSAA Showcase in Jackson and picked up a 2-0 win over Warren Central but dropped games to Hernando (2-0) and Ocean Springs (2-0) to end showcase play. Starkville rebounded with a 3-1 win over Amory before back-to-back losses to Caledonia (3-1) and Northwest Rankin (3-1) joined with Monday’s 3-0 loss at Tupelo to bring the team’s early season record to 2-4.
Yellow Jacket head coach Meghan Mullane said she was optimistic about the season before it started and hasn’t wavered in her beliefs.
“We have a lot of sophomores and juniors filling positions, and we had some move-ins come in, so we’re still trying to kind of figure out our groove as a team and figure out what line up is going to work best for us and kind of just gel together,” said Mullane, who is in her third year leading Starkville volleyball. “Even though we’ve had losses, they’ve been to really tough opponents and I feel like we’ve had an opportunity to learn a lot from those losses.”
The Jackets have spent practice time focused on resilience, something Mullane said her team has shown at times but often too late in matches. She recalled a moment during her team’s loss to Caldedonia last week when the Yellow Jackets won the match’s third set, 25-23, to force a fourth one where its early lead slipped into a match loss.
“As (Caldedonia) started climbing back, we couldn’t get the momentum back on our side. You could just see it in their faces where it’s like, ‘Oh shoot, we might lose this game,’” Mullane said. “It’s just finding that fight even if things are going our way. If a call by the (referees) doesn’t go our way, if we don’t have a lot of energy from our fans, (we’re) trying to find ways to just dig deep and play the game that we know how to play.”
She said going through hard moments early could help make the Yellow Jackets better as the season goes on.
“I do expect that we are going to face good competition, and if we can have a little bit more resiliency – I think that we’ve trained a lot in the offseason, we’ve conditioned and lifted and done all of those things – but if we can just trust the process then we should be in a better position,” Mullane said.
Hope in New Hope
Similar to Starkville, New Hope opened its volleyball campaign with a tough slate of opponents at the MHSAA Showcase and dropped matches to Oak Grove (2-1), Our Lady Academy (2-0), Newton County (2-1) and Hancock (2-1). The Trojans let the four-game slide slip into an 0-6 start to the season. Part of their troubles are finding rhythm in the absence of Lexi McBrayer, one of New Hope’s three returning seniors, who went down with a “pretty significant ankle injury” during a 3-0 loss to Tupelo last week, New Hope head coach Laura Lee Holman said. Since then, it’s been all hands on deck in trying to right the ship.
“Just trying to find those (replacement) pieces. We’ve kind of had to play chess a little bit, moving some pieces around,” Holman said. I’ve had to move some freshmen in as well, and sometimes it takes them some time to adjust, and we haven’t. We haven’t been playing our best ball, and if you are going to play bad volleyball, this would be a great time to be doing it. We definitely have been working, improving some things. Just haven’t been able to get that win, especially without having Lexi.
“She plays such an important role offensively, defensively and leadership wise – just her effort. Everyone is trying to kind of match her effort every night, but I’m proud of the way the girls have responded. They are playing really hard. There are some inconsistencies, which is probably our biggest battle right now.”
Holman said there is no timeline for McBrayer to return to action. The team wants her to be fully healthy before she steps back onto the court.
“We’re in no big rush,” Holman said. “Obviously, we’d love to have her back before district (play), but she’s such a competitor and plays so hard, she’s just one of them kids that she (needs to be) as close to 100% as she can be before she gets back on the floor. (She) has a very bright future as well, so we’re not trying to rush her back on the court by any means. It’s given us an opportunity to learn to play without her. Some people are having to step up. If we could get that and add her back in the lineup, it could be something that might work in our favor down the long run.”
Rough restart at Heritage
Heritage Academy’s softball program is in the same boat as New Hope volleyball, just sailing a different sea.
The Patriots (0-3), who played at Carroll Academy yesterday, are in the early stages of building up a softball program that is fielding a team in the sport for the first time in two years.
“To start, we had to get off the ground,” said Heritage head coach Jonathan Parnell. “We’ve had a tough schedule up front and we feel like we’ll get better as the season progresses. We’re a very young team.”
The Patriots are fielding six seniors, five freshmen and one eighth and sixth grader for its varsity team, including some who’ve never played softball before. To complicate matters, the ones who have softball experience haven’t seen much action in the gap of play at Heritage.
“It’s been a big adjustment, and our players have really worked hard this summer, and they’ll continue to get better as we play games,” Parnell said.
Hitting and learning the game of softball are all areas of development Parnell is hoping to make strides in this season, especially pitching – an area he said he is focusing hard on to help lay the foundation for future teams.
“The biggest thing that I’m so proud of, for the whole roster, is how much they’re battling and working really hard, because it is tough when you’re playing against these teams that are ahead of us right now,” Parnell said. “Just to keep battling, knowing that the end result is that we’re just trying to get to the playoffs at the end of September.”
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