Fresh faces to guide Park Hill volleyball in 2021
The Park Hill volleyball team will be looking to some fresh faces as head coach Lindsey Hood returns for her 12th season with the Trojans.
The Trojans worked out in the sand three days a week over the summer. Hood said that sand helps to work on jumping and agility as well as strength and movements. It also helps stability for the knees, hips and ankles.
“Anytime you work on a surface that isn’t flat and hard it creates irregular movements, so we feel like it's helpful,” Hood said.
They also hosted a camp from July 19-22 where they competed against Park Hill South and a couple schools from Arkansas and lower Missouri.
The Trojans are preparing for another year that could have Covid interruptions. That makes depth even more valuable now than in other years.
“We’re just trying to look for depth and see how many people can play different positions in different settings,” Hood said. “We just ask people to do the best they can.”
Park Hill will have to replace four starting players from last year’s team that went 17-8, beating Staley for the Class 5 District 16 championship before falling to Blue Springs in the sectional round.
“It’s hard to replace the four that we lost,” Hood said. “But as a coach, sometimes it's fun because you're starting with a different group of girls and they have different skillsets and talents.”
Among those lost is Kristen Birmingham, who is now playing volleyball at the University of Oklahoma. The other three starters were Aile Aiano, Hanah Graves and Megan Hoover.
The Trojans will return one senior, Valencia Zamora, along with a handful of juniors. Hood said they will need to lead the team this year as they ask a lot out of many of young kids.
“We might start out a little bit rough because we’re in a crazy-difficult conference,” Hood stated. “We’re hoping that we can grow and keep improving each week with the ultimate goal of having a set lineup with positive results.”
Hood said that typically teams from their conference will see each other in district championships and throughout the state tournament.
A deep run into the State tournament is always the ultimate goal, last winning the State title in 1997, their third in program history under head coach Debbie Fay.
The Trojans are more focused on developing as a team to be able to make a memorable postseason run, losing in the sectional round in two of the past three seasons. Those recent sectional runs ended a spell of 15+ years that went all the way back to at least 2002 where they never made it out of districts.
“It’s going to take team chemistry,” Hood said. “If you have chemistry, you don’t necessarily have to have the most talented players. You have to have a floor on the court where people can trust each other and play off of each other to do what they need to do.”
