(Anita) The CAM volleyball team enters the 2022 season with high goals. The Cougars start the season August 27th at the AHSTW Tournament.
Coach Jenna Maiers comments on the expectations for the group. “We have a lot of the same goals we had last year. Our big goal is definitely that conference title. Our conference does look pretty tough this year, so it’s not going to be easy. We lost quite a few seniors from last year, so we have some rebuilding to do and some spots to fill.”
Six seniors from last year’s 23-win team are gone, but they do bring back some talented upperclassmen. “We have Eva Steffensen coming back and she has lots of strengths. She hits the ball super hard. I want her to work on some more placement balls. We know she can hit the crap out of the ball, we just want to see if she can start placing the ball in some of those holes on the other side of the court. We have Bree Bower coming back in the setter position. It’s great when you don’t lose your setter, that’s always a tough one to replace. Meredith Rich played the back row last year and is stepping into an all the way round position and hitting some outside and then Reese Snyder is coming back and stepping into a big role from Marissa Spieker in that libero position. We have some pretty decent talent coming back. I’m excited to see how it’s all going to come together.”
There are some position battles that are still up for grabs. “We have a middle spot and a right side spot that we have kind of open. Jenna Platt is going to do some really good things for us this year. I also see some good things that could be coming out of Nova Wheatley. We have two really tall girls with Payton Laporte and Natalie Behnken that could see some middle roles. We have Lilly Applegate in there too, so we have about five girls that can fill about 2.5 positions in there.”
Coach Maiers reports she’s been impressed with how practices are going. “I have 19 girls out this year which is a lower number than we are used to, but all 19 of those girls just hustle their butts off all the time. I don’t have to get on them about working hard at all. That’s been really nice to see. That’s a hard thing to coach to get them working hard for you and they are already doing that. So now we just get to do all the fun stuff.”
Maiers says serving will be a big emphasis as they prepare for the season.
CAM coach Jenna Maiers:
