Muskie volleyball coaches looking for solid seasons

Lucas Punkari

With a season under the belts for the head coaches of both the Muskie senior and junior boys’ volleyball squads, the 2011 NorWOSSA campaign is all about building on their performances from last year.
In the case of the senior team, this season is all about continuing to ride the wave of momentum it enjoyed a year ago.
“The senior boys’ program had struggled over the last couple of years so what we were able to do last year was a big leap forward for us,” noted head coach Allison Hyatt.
“Last year we won some NorWOSSA games, but we kind of crumbled in the playoffs and we ended up finishing in third instead of being in the title game,” she recalled.
“This year, one of our goals is to beat Dryden and to win NorWOSSA, and then we will just go from there.”
A roster of 10 or 11 players was to be set in stone for the black-and-gold squad yesterday as the seniors get ready for their first tournament of the season next weekend in Kenora and then their first NorWOSSA game on Thursday, Sept. 22 in Dryden.
“With this team, I’m hoping that we can be a very aggressive and defensive-oriented team,” said Hyatt, who added this year’s squad will feature an even split of returning players and new faces.
“We had a very strong hitter last year in Justin Anderson, who is not with us this year, so we are looking for people to step up and fill that position for us,” she noted.
“Our main goal is to be very strong on defence and to be a type of team that’s very aggressive, goes for everything out on the court, and be very scrappy.”
As for the junior boys, who are being coached for a second-straight year by John Gibson, they will be looking to defend the NorWOSSA crown they won a year ago.
“It would be nice to repeat as champions, but we still have a long way ahead of use before that happens,” Gibson stressed.
“We still have to put together a team roster, have our first league game against Dryden and then our first tournament in Kenora.”
With only six players of the 22 trying out for the Muskie squad returning from last year’s championship squad, there will be a little bit of a process getting the newcomers up to speed.
“Practices have been going good so far, but you can notice the difference with the six that are back from last year compared to the newcomers,” Gibson admitted.
“Those guys that are returning from last year are a lot more familiar with things such as court positioning and the fundamentals of the game, so we’ll be working with the new group in getting them up to speed in the next few days,” he added.
With this year’s squad of 14-16 players being decided at the end this of week, Gibson is unsure yet what exactly his team’s strengths and weaknesses will be until the season begins.
“It’ll kind of be a wait-and-see process to see where the kids are at,” he remarked.
“The tournament in Kenora will be a good start of the season for us as we’ll get a lot of experience on the court with a number of games.
“That will give the kids a lot of touches at the start of the year as they will get to work on the fundamentals and their positioning on offense and defence out there,” he added.