We are about a month into our season, with roughly two months still ahead of us, and I wanted to give our SPSV families a look at what has been happening inside the gym.

First, I want to congratulate the girls on earning second place at the St. Helena Tournament. I’m incredibly proud of how they competed.

One characteristic is beginning to define this team: grit.

We have shown an ability to fight for wins, battle through difficult stretches, and continue competing when things aren’t going our way. Before and after matches, our coaches consistently emphasize two things to the girls: effort and attitude. Those are things we can control every time we step onto the court, and I have been very happy with both over the past few weeks.

Building Game Sense First

During our first couple weeks of practice, we spent a significant amount of time in game-like situations, particularly with serve receive and defense.

There was a reason for that.

One of my biggest priorities as a coach is developing perception and game sense. Volleyball happens quickly. Players have to see what is happening, recognize the situation, make a decision, and execute—all within a matter of seconds.

We wanted the girls to get as many opportunities as possible to actually read and play the game, rather than only practicing skills in isolation.

Can we recognize what is happening and know what to do?

Once we began developing that understanding, our training shifted.

Turning Understanding Into Execution

We then moved into a higher-repetition phase of training. We incorporated more hitting repetitions, serving, serve receive, and defensive work. We wanted the girls to get enough quality repetitions to begin making good technique feel natural.

The progression is something we want to continue throughout the season:

See the game → Understand the situation → Build the skill → Execute under pressure.

Our attacking has been one of the areas where I’ve been particularly pleased with the improvement.

We have challenged our hitters to jump and attack even when the set isn’t perfect. Volleyball rarely gives you a perfect ball, so we want players who can find ways to be aggressive in imperfect situations.

We’re starting to see that. The girls are hitting with more pace, showing more aggression, and becoming increasingly comfortable attacking balls from different locations.

Learning From Competition

Our most recent match also gave us valuable information.

During the second set, I experimented with a lineup change that did not work as well as I had hoped. I take responsibility for that decision.

We hadn’t accumulated enough repetitions with that particular lineup, and when we tried to execute it during a real match, it became difficult for us to stabilize.

But there is value in trying.

Now we have more information. We know what needs to be practiced before we attempt something similar again, and we have a better understanding of how different combinations of players function together.

Throughout the season, we will continue exploring lineup possibilities and gathering information about how we can make this team as competitive as possible.

The Progress Is Showing

The scoreboard doesn’t always tell the entire story of a team’s development. When I compare this group today to the group that walked into the gym at the beginning of the season, I see progress.

  • We’re attacking harder.
  • We’re handling tougher serves better.
  • We’re making better volleyball plays.
  • We’re becoming more comfortable playing the game.

There will still be mistakes and difficult matches. That’s part of developing as a team.

We can’t completely control the scoreboard. We can control how deliberately we practice, how hard we compete, and what kind of attitude we bring into the gym.

If we continue improving those things, the results will have an opportunity to follow.

What’s Next?

After talking with our captains and coaching staff, three areas stood out as priorities for the next phase of our season: serving, serve receive, and tip defense.

Serving

We want to become a more aggressive serving team. We’ve played against teams with one or two servers who can completely change a set. Our goal is to develop players who can do the same thing.

We don’t simply want to put the ball in play. We want our serving to become a weapon.

Serve Receive

The other side of that equation is serve receive. When an opponent has a server capable of creating a long scoring run, we need to have an answer. Improving our serve receive gives us the ability to stop those runs, get ourselves back into system, and play our volleyball.

We’re also investing in hand passing as another tool for our players. We already saw situations where it helped us in serve receive during our most recent match.

The more tools our players have, the more problems they can solve.

Defending Forward

Finally, we need to improve our ability to defend tips and short balls. We’ve become more comfortable defending balls that come directly toward us. Moving forward to control a ball in front of us is still less comfortable.

That’s okay—it tells us where we need to invest our repetitions.

Forward movement, reading attackers, and controlling short balls will become a bigger part of our defensive training moving forward.

And We’re Going to Keep Playing Volleyball

Through all of this, one thing will remain constant: we’re going to play volleyball.

Real game play is one of the highest-value uses of our practice time. It forces players to combine everything we’re developing—serving, passing, attacking, defending, communicating, reading the game, and making decisions.

Ultimately, that’s what we’re preparing them to do.

Looking Ahead

I’m proud of where this group is compared with where we started.

We still have plenty of volleyball ahead of us, and there are plenty of areas where we can improve. That’s exciting because it means there is still a lot of room for this team to grow.

Most importantly, I want our girls to continue becoming competitors who play hard, respond to adversity, support one another, and aren’t afraid to make mistakes while trying to improve.

Thank you to all of our SPSV families for supporting the girls and our program.

I hope to provide updates like this more regularly so parents can have greater context about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how the girls are progressing.

I’m looking forward to seeing where the next two months take us.

Go Bruins!

Coach B
SPSV JV Volleyball