The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

The Lady Pioneer volleyball ladies are working hard to once again make it to divisionals. The head coach of the Lady Pioneer volleyball team is Brittany McKenney. Her assistant coach is Morgan Simpson, which will be her second year. Teal Poole is the junior high coach.

Brittany told me she has 14 girls out for volleyball this year, "which is a smaller number than what we are used to. I would say the average is usually 16. The good news is, there will be a lot of playing time for everyone, which is fantastic."

Brittany said, "Obviously, it's a bit of a rebuilding year just because my three seniors from last year all started, played all the way around for me, and so they were definitely three strong, strong athletes. So there's just kind of filling those holes. But, I really do think that we're going to be able to do that. I feel like we've been working very hard. They'll have had 30 hours of practice before our first game. And I think that's going to show you that, it's still going to take some time just to keep developing that team chemistry and everyone just feeling confident in their positions. I really do think that this group is learning quickly and we've got some really good athletes. I'm excited for the season. We don't have Chinook anymore (Chinook moved to class B). So there are only eight teams in our district. With this group, we definitely have some big goals for the season, so we'll see if we can achieve that. I hope we do. This year, I have three seniors so I have Lainey Terry, Tasha Allderdice, and Teagan Cochrane (SP), and I only had three incoming freshmen. Usually, I have a bigger freshman class, but the three that I have are working really hard. They've come a long way already. So I'm excited. I'm excited for both of our teams honestly for JV and varsity because I think we should have a pretty good season for both teams.'

The girls ' team has been doing some incredibly fun activities together including floating the river together and developing team cohesion which is extremely important in creating a winning atmosphere.