New Year - New Beginning - New Coach

It's the start of our 10th year of Varsity VB at Hamilton! This new season, albeit late in starting, promises to be exciting. With the first week of practice being over the Thanksgiving break, Monday was the first day that we had 100% attendance with all 28 JV and Varsity players.

Where to begin? How about at the beginning. At the beginning of each sports season HS varsity coaches get requests for information from local news outlets so that they can run their annual "Winter (or Spring or Fall) Sports Preview". Inevitably, the first few questions usually end up covering: Last year's record & Post-season finish, Coaches record, returning starters, who is new to the team, who graduated, who will be your toughest competition, strengths, weakness of the team etc etc etc...

Although I am not a huge fan of doing these, I will do so as it may provide information and in-site for the casual volleyball fan (and opposing coaches).

We finished 2009-10 with the best winning % in team history and an 18-4 record, but for the 2nd year in a row we lost in the sectional finals. We graduated 3 starters from that team and lost 2 more starters to other interests, so we are returning 2 starters from last year's team: Senior Rachel Holcomb (S/OH) and Junior Morgan Brooks (Libero).

Others returning from last year's varsity squad: Senior Alisa Babcock (MH), Juniors Marissa Sitts (MH) & Hannah Sorosky (S) and Senior Brigitte Capirci (S).

Our new comers to varsity this year will be Juniors Emily Powerie (OH), Eric Haugh (S), Emma Parish (OH), Stephanie Salmon (OH), Bailey O'Keefe (OH), Sammi Reardon (OH) and Sophomore Carrie VonMuench (OH).

At this point I am supposed to make a prediction on how the year will go: My guess is it will take some time to get the team to gel and work together. How does our competition look? Tough.

Man I am tired. I will update this Blog whenever I get a chance, and not a moment sooner.