It looks as if the entire Manchester squad is converging on West Union’s Jocelyn Hall (2) at the net in action from the August 9 Southern Hills Athletic Conference Preview. (Photo by Mark Carpenter)
North Adams hosts annual conference event
Peebles’ Ashlyn Abbott (23) battle at the net as the Lady Indians faced Fayetteville in the 2024 SHAC Volleyball Preview. (Photo by Mark Carpenter)
North Adams’ Natalie Ragan (foreground) makes a return over the outstretched arms of a pair of Fairfield blockers as the two teams faced off in last week’s SHAC Preview. (Photo by Mark Carpenter)
By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
The 2024 high school volleyball season got underway last Friday night at North Adams High School as the Southern Hills Athletic Conference presented the annual Volleyball Preview Night. All 10 teams from the conference were in action and even though it didn’t officially “count”, it was an opportunity to defray the nerves and work out the kinks with a real opponent on the other side of the net. The format for the evening was each match consisting of two sets played to 21.
The first match up of the night involved a pair of Adams County squads as third-year head coach Kiersten Rowe and the West Union Lady Dragons battled the Manchester Lady Greyhounds, under the guidance of first-year head coach Aaliyah Smith.
Friday’s action looked to promise and intriguing regular season match between the two sides. Both sets were back and forth and close throughout with the Lady Hounds eventually squeaking by in both sets, 21-20 and 21-19.
“I was so nervous”, said Coach Smith after the match. “I thought my girls did pretty good. I just want to start fresh with the girls, I’ve coached them all before. We still have a lot of work on and we’ll just see how the season goes.”
“I think the girls were nervous and still working out the kinks,” said West Union’s Coach Rowe. “I think we didn’t play to our potential but the nice thing is it’s early and we still have time to get things together. As always we have have things to work on and improve to get us to where we need to be as a team.”
After matches between Ripley-Eastern Brown and Lynchburg-Whiteoak, the Peebles Lady Indians took the floor , under the direction of another first-year head coach, Tina Fristoe. The Lady Indians faced off with the Fayetteville Lady Rockets, both teams picked in the preseason coaches poll to finish second in their respective divisions.
The Lady Indians were missing a few players due to late summer vacations and the stumbled out of the gate a bit, dropping the first set 21-14. But the Peebles girls regrouped for the second set and performed much better, winning set number two 21-18.
Coach Fristoe was hired late in the summer, so her team has not spent a lot of time together to this point, which she emphasized in her postgame interview.
“We’ve only had four practices before tonight,” said Coach Fristoe. “I thought we looked pretty good considering that. I think we did settle down after we got that first set out of the way. I expect improvement from his point on and I think we will come out really strong. We’ve got some really strong players, like Angel Gray and Ashlyn Abbott. We have to learn to work together, which is something I thought we weren’t too bad at tonight.”
The final match up of the night pitted two teams who have developed quite a rivalry and were chosen by the coaches to win the big and small school divisions in 2024, the Fairfield Lady Lions, champions of the small school division in 2023 and the host North Adams Lady Devils, defending gold ball champions of the big school division last fall. In fact, the only conference loss last season for the Lady Lions came at the hands of the Lady Devils.
Friday’ contest matched the SHAC Co-Players of the Year from 2023, Fairfield’s Jobey Hattan and North Adams’ Katelynn Boerger. Though it was just a preview, the Lady Devils controlled most of the action, especially at the net, and prevailed in both sets by the identical score of 21-15,
“The preview is really only half a match,” said North Adams long-time head coach Katie Ragan. “We had a couple of scrimmages this week and I thought we looked better tonight than we did in those scrimmages. I thought we played pretty well overall. Fairfield hustles, they get after the ball, and you have to hit the ball more than once to get it down.”
“We have another week before our first regular season match and a couple of more scrimmages and we just have to work on cutting down our errors and getting a little more variety in our offense.”
The 2024 volleyball regular season looms this week, beginning on Friday night when West Union will play host to Felicity. On Monday, August 19, North Adams will host Minford and the following night, Manchester will travel to Piketon. Also on August 20, Peebles will open conference play with a road trip to Lynchburg.
