Dan Falloon
There wasn’t much to do to fend off a slow start.
The Muskie junior girls’ volleyball squad—sporting a 1-4 record in NorWOSSA play—were at a distinct disadvantage to start the season after not playing any pre-season games, but have since become more comfortable after some battles.
“We definitely had a rough start,” admitted coach Jason Cain. “We have some skilled players.
“They’ve just got to come together, and actually play together.
“They’ve got to communicate with each other, and they’ve been able to do that in the last two tournaments we’ve been in,” he noted.
Lack of warm-up time aside, the team’s general shortage of volleyball experience was another snag early in the season.
“A lot of them are new to the game and not playing with people they’ve played with in the past,” Cain explained.
The transformation began just after the Christmas break when the black-and-gold marched into Dryden and eked out a 3-2 victory over the Eagles.
The following weekend, the squad earned bronze at the “Winter Blast” tournament in Kenora.
“[Against Dryden], it came down to our fifth set, and in our fifth set, they realized that after taking two sets away, we could actually probably win this, and we actually started really communicating that point,” Cain recalled.
“They called every ball, went after every ball.”
Cain said the Muskies have reserved their finest play for the tournaments, though, citing the bronze-winning match as the top moment from the young season.
“Our best game, I would say, was against Portage Collegiate,” he remarked. “They’re a team that started playing in September and we started in November.
“We really got everyone going,” he added. “They actually realized that they could play some very strong volleyball and they went for it. They got the bronze medal.
“They were a lot more aggressive,” Cain stressed. “They made a lot of smart plays. They weren’t trying to serve too hard and didn’t put it out-of-bounds.
“They put it in play and played their game, and made the other team try to beat them on their own mistakes.”
Cain said much of the credit goes to the fact the Muskies are better equipped to put the ball in play, making it the responsibility of opponents to earn their points.
“Our serving’s getting a lot better,” he noted. “Our first part of our season, our serving was really bad and that’s come up quite a bit.
“We’ve come up 20 percent in our serving,” he lauded.
Earlier in the season, Fort High was handing out points at an alarming rate. While the team has lost both of its NorWOSSA matches since upsetting Dryden on Jan. 5, nearly all the sets have been closely contested.
“We were losing on our own mistakes, that’s what it came down to,” Cain said. “Little things like people not [taking] the extra step for the ball, serving the ball into the net.
“It was our mistakes that were giving other teams the points.
“If we can actually fix those mistakes, we can run an offence and make plays,” he noted.
The Muskies resume NorWOSSA play tomorrow (Feb. 4) in Kenora, then will visit there again next Thursday.
In between, they’ll host the Dryden Eagles this coming Tuesday (Feb. 9) in their last home date before the playoffs.
