By Chuck Reherman
Sports Editor
Yukon wrapped up its first week of practice as the Millerette volleyball team began preparations for their quest of a successful season.
An experienced squad worked two-a-day practices three days this past week and finished up on Friday with a light practice, The team begins its regular practice scheduie on Monday.
YHS will have a second week of workouts then head to Mustang on July 30 for a multi-team scrimmage. The Millerettes will host a scrimmage on Aug. 2 with Midwest City Carl Albert, the Oklahoma City Storm and Southwest Covenant on Aug. 2. The scrimmage will start at 2 p.m. for the varsity, junior varsity and freshmen.
The team opened the first week of drills with a “lock-in” that led to its first practice at 12:01 a.m. on July 16.
“Practice has gone well this week,” Millerette coach Rachel Allred said. “We began our lock-in on Sunday night and we were there until 7 a.m. with a lot of team building and family groups.
“We have 11 seniors this year, so they each had a family group of three or four girls they are in charge of,” she added. “We competed in the family groups, did goal setting and goal drilling and camped out in the big gym. We had lots of fun and team building for years.”
The team came back and worked out twice on Tuesday, then had a harder workout on Wednesday and Thursday and had a lighter workout on Friday.
Allred was pleased with how the team worked out in the practices and the overall condition the players came out in.
“We have enough girls that go far with club ball and play beach that they keep in shape year round,” Allred said. “It has been a transition with half of our varsity new to varsity. It is a lot of players that have not played together before, so they are still getting adjusted to each other.
“The varsity and JV will have new combinations and we will see who fits well where,” she added. “We have a good corps of hitters on the varsity, but the defense is looking a little different. We lost our main libero and setter and have seniors fighting for those positions. But, everyone is looking good.
“We have our groups set for teams for the most part and know we have to determine who works best together and any combinations that don’t work. We will concentrate on our serve-receive, really pinpointing serve accuracy and passing accuracy.
“We will also start getting more specific on our offense and learn the plays and see what we can run and can’t run with our setters, if we can run one setter or two setters. We will look at offensive and defensive options from here on out.”
Replacing the libero and setter will be a key for Allred and her staff. The Millerettes have strong outside hitters with Brianna Worth, Sidney Benge, Chloe Hartman, Rachel Kittel and Sunny Middleton.
She is looking at moving another hitter, Mallory Scott to the setter position. She has set off and on during her career, but played right side hittwr last year. Addison Smith has not played the position since middle school, but Allred saw potential in her last year and had her work on the position over the summer.
“Addison has really stepped up and accepted the challenge,” Allred said. “The girls have taken her under their wing and working with her to adjust where they want the set and how the offense runs.
“We are working mainly on offense, because we have new setters,” Allred said. “Hitting wise, we are really looking good and feel good about it.”
