Alberton Lady Panthers start vball season

The Alberton Lady Panthers are back on the court for this year's volleyball season. Practice started on Monday and Coach Rachel Clevenger said that the first game is only a couple of weeks out.

Coming out of last season, Clevenger said that this year she plans to have the team working on passing and serving, saying that those were two of biggest area that needed improvement.

"We also need more movement on both the defense and offensive ends," Clevenger said.

Clevenger said that she has a bunch of new drills for the girls that should help to get them moving as well as some motivating tools to encourage them to "get involved a bit more."

Thirteen girls showed up for practice on Monday. Clevenger said that it's split right now with six seniors and seven freshmen.

"It's a real good group of seniors and they'll need to help out as much as they can with the freshmen to teach them. They're going to be our subs and backup," Clevenger noted.

Clevenger said that while the overall goal would be to make it out of districts this year, she'll be focusing on making sure the freshmen get as much experience as they can.

"They'll be the varsity next year," she said.

Clevenger said that she doesn't believe that not having a middle group will be a huge problem this year. She said that with the small sophomore class and only a few juniors, it's hard to get players. And while thirteen kids out for volleyball may seem small, Clevenger said she has more girls this season than last.

"The freshmen are going to get some playing time obviously," Clevenger said.

Clevenger said that she is hoping that despite what may be a rough season, it's hard to tell just one practice in, she hopes that the team can taste some success.

"I hope that we can do well for the seniors and for the freshmen," Clevenger said. "I want them to see they can have some success and I want them to know what it feels like to win. I'm sure there's going to be some ups and downs and some struggles."

Clevenger said that the first practice was a little rough because the freshmen have to learn all the new drills, but she said that while it was slow, some of them are pretty athletic and "seem like they want to be there."

"There's a lot of pressure on them," Clevenger said.

Clevenger said that the idea for the season is to be continually improving. She said that last season the team averaged about eight balls dropped per game and would like to see the girls really going after them this year.

"One of our first goals right off the bat is I don't want any balls dropped in the first few games," Clevenger said. "And I'd like us to be serving well."

Clevenger said that she like to win half of the games this year and do well in the tournaments. She said that they had a good first half last season, but the second half was rough.

"The seniors learned some good lessons with the experience last year," Clevenger said.

Clevenger said that they will play Phillipsburg on August 29 for the first game of the season. She said the team has good servers and are pretty scrappy. But how the game will turn out is up in the air as it will depend on how many kids the team has.

"Who knows? It's hard to say what will happen," Clevenger said.