Signing!!

So I'm a little late in putting this up, but we had the pleasure of attending the latest signing ceremony at Copperas Cove High School earlier this month, where Phyllicia Cross signed to be a Lady Rebel!  Phyllicia is an outside hitter who has a lot of experience playing in both high level 5A High School volleyball and in top level club ball with Waco Juniors.

Her coach, Coach Lowery, had many good things to say about Phyllicia, and then proceeded to list all of her accomplishments, which included numerous school records and post season awards.  We could not be happier to have Phyllicia attend Hill College next season!

More signing news later this week...

Athletic banquet

Last night we had our athletic banquet, honoring all athletic teams at Hill for on and off court excellence.  We had 7 players make the Athletic Director's Honor Roll, with all of them having GPA's above 3.4!  Very, very excited about that.  Here is a picture of us after the banquet:

More news to come tomorrow.

Last Spring Tournament

This past Saturday we went to Tyler and competed in a tri-match with Lon Morris and the host team, Tyler JC.  Once again, we just wanted to see where we were at with our individual skills and what we needed to work on heading into the summer.
Our first match was against Tyler and they swept us in 3.  We started out very low and got beat in game 1, but had many chances to win game 2 and couldn't put together the necessary run to get us over the top.  Tyler played very well and looked like a well coached team.  They will be much improved next season in their conference.
Our last match was against Lon Morris and we won that in 3 straight games.  Our middles were very effective and we also won the first contact portion of the match.  When you can do that, good things happen.
It was the last time I will ever coach our sophomores and it was good to see them going out on a win.  We will miss them, and we know that they will be successful.  They also made our team much better this spring and I know our freshmen this year will be successful because of it.
So thats it for this season.  We have our athletic banquet next week, and then finals begin.  The season has flown by.  I'll have updates on our signees and look to our main athletics page for information about our summer camp.

Sophomores Sign!!

Yesterday we had a ceremony in our welcome center for both of our sophomores who are moving on to 4 year institutions.

Sapphire (on the left) was joined by her parents Robert and Jessica, and Lauren's mom Dianne came for the festivities.  Both our president and vice president were able to attend and say some nice words.  Our team was also there and were able to see what happens when you put in the work and effort.
Sapphire signed with Long Island University, which is a Division 1 school in the Northeast Conference.  Lauren signed with Henderson State, a Division 2 school in the Gulf South Conference.  More importantly, they will both be on full rides.
I will be sad to see them leave, as I've known both of them since they were 15 years old.  I know we will be following them next year as they move on and I have no doubt that they will be successful wherever their journey takes them.

Finally, I'll have news on our next spring tourney, a new signee, and other bits of info next week!

Second Spring Scrimmage

Yesterday we went up to Brookhaven College for a spring tourney.  Like our last one, this was a chance to get some floor time for everyone and see where we have progressed.

We played 5 matches in a row.  Literally.  We probably had about 5 minutes between each one.  As a result, I was very happy we had 10 players.  This also showed that our off season conditioning program has been working extremely well because I didn't see any signs of fatigue (other than multiple "I'm hungry" lines from the girls).

Our first match was against Trinity Valley.  We came out very well and continued our solid blocking.  If we can continue to block effectively we can win a lot of games.  We won game one, but for some reason did not block very well in game 2 and Trinity Valley won that.

Each match was just 2 games so we moved on to the next one against Brookhaven.  They are always a tough team to play and we did not match their level and they swept us.  After this match the team had a little heart to heart and from then on things got better.

We beat conference foe Ranger College in straight sets, and split with another conference team NCTC.  As a side note, NCTC will be very good next year.  They came one win away this year from going to nationals and they will be better next season.  They have a solid coach and they always show up to play.  Our conference keeps getting better.

Our last match was against Eastfield, who we have a home and home with next season.  They are much improved from last season, and our game was very competitive.  We won game 1, but lost game 2.

So we got to play volleyball for about 5 hours straight.  We showed areas that we have improved in, and other areas that still need work.  Our conditioning is in fine shape, and we will continue to improve that.  Our last spring tournament is April 16 at Tyler and we will see if we can win some more games there and go to summer on a high note.  Until next time...