Lady Red Devils will lean on 'scrappiness'
The Lady Red Devils volleyball team goes through practice drills last week as they get ready for the first game of the 2022 season this Thursday in Noxon. (Chuck Bandel/VP-MI)
It is not surprising to say the Noxon Lady Red Devils will be a good volleyball team this year.
Under the leadership of head coach Dana Grupenhoff that has become an expected happening.
And despite the loss of two outstanding players from last year’s team, the next group of players is stepping up and preparing to be a competitive team as usual.
Gone from last year’s team are Riley Richter and Vannessa Horner, two outstanding players who graduated and moved on.
In their place, Grupenhoff and company welcomed a good sized player turnout led by senior Emily Brown, a multi-sport star who comes back as a setter and this year a middle hitter. Brown has also been a standout on the basketball court and in track and field for the Lady Red Devils for the past two years.
She is joined by returnees Mia Vogel, a junior outside hitter; Maygan Swanson, a junior middle hitter, Aubrey Erwiin, a senior outside hitter and Seanna Richter, a sophomore who will be starting for the third straight year as the latest Richter to brighten Noxon’s volleyball prospects.
The team as a whole has solid experience playing together as a group, a factor Grupenhoff said was key to their success.
“This group of girls has been playing together since they were in fifth grade,” Grupenhoff said. “I anticipate a lot of scrappiness, the ability to maintain impressive volleys and some great attack strength”.
Those qualities have become trademarks of a Grupenhoff team. And the team has other things it can work on to improve.
“Passing is always something to improve on,” she said. “We will only be as good as our ability to pass and work together”.
Grupenhoff said she is expecting a tough conference battle will emerge as it always does.
“We always have a scrappy, tough league,” she said. “Charlo and Superior will probably be our biggest challenges but you can never count anyone out”.
Noxon opens the 2022 season with a versus Victor this Thursday, September 25 at 5 pm in Noxon. They travel to the “Spike it Tourney” in Ronan the 27th, then come home August 30 (Tuesday) for a conference game vs Hot Springs at 7 pm.