S.M.A.C. - Christopher Volleyball Cycles Ahead
Getting ready for a new school year for me means taking team pictures and talking to coaches of all the fall sports. It’s something I’ve done for 17 years now, and every year one storyline always stands out.
This year an intriguing team to follow may be the Christopher-Zeigler-Royalton volleyball team. Eric Stallman’s team had the best year in the school’s history in 2007, winning the program’s first-ever regional crown before losing in the sectional tournament to eventual sectional champ Greenfield.
Stallman had quite a group last year, with six good starters that gobbled up the minutes. Just one of the Steel Six is back this year, but Stallman is not the “glass is half empty” type, he’s looking forward to the challenge of a new year.
“This group is a lot like last year,” he said. “The group we had last year started out with just one senior and was very young. Having a group that you know you’re going to have for two or three years is a real upside.”
But volleyball is an “experience” sport. You can’t just walk out there and dominate. There’s a lot of work involved. Stallman hopes that the experience this group got scrimmaging last year will translate to the court.
“They practiced against that group last year and improved all season long,” said Stallman. “I saw and still see definite improvement in practice every day.”
Last year, Hope Valette started every game as setter for the Lady Cats. She is back as a sophomore to anchor this year’s team.
“Hope did start every game and she got a lot of experience for a freshman setter,” Stallman said.
But, still there’s nothing like game experience, and the rest of the team will have to learn on the job in what Stallman said is a good conference. Still, Stallman doesn’t see any pressure on his team.
“There’s no pressure,” he said. “The Black Diamond is going to be good. Carterville is always strong and Sesser has a lot of returners and Elkville is going to have the best team they’ve had in a while.
“So it’s going to be tough and it will be a challenge.”
But the third-year coach is ready to watch his team grow up on the court.
“We’ve got a lot of talent on this team,” he said. “It’s always good for a coach to look out there and see the team growing and learning and playing as hard as they are for us in practice.
“And it’s always good for a coach to have talent.”
So it’s too soon to talk about long runs and challenging records, but Stallman knows he has the support of the school and the community.
“Will this team be able to make a long run? I don’t know,” he said. “If they continue to develop, you never know. Last year’s team got on a good roll and made a run into the postseason.
“And we were able to get the kids that don’t play volleyball and the community behind us last year,” he continued. “Hopefully they enjoyed the game of volleyball and weren’t just there because we were winning. We want them to continue to come to our games.”
Volleyball is just like any other sport, though, you get the people to the games by winning, you get girls from elementary school and up to like the sport by playing hard and having fun, and you build a program by being consistent. And sports seem to go in cycles and this 2008 CZR team has the same type of roster that came to the school four years ago and ended in success.
And we all know that you don’t always remember the start, but you always remember the finish.
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Sunday, August 24th, 2008 at 4:08 pm under