(Audubon) Audubon has a new volleyball coach for the upcoming season. Brandi (Bueltel) Gruhn will lead the Wheelers into the 2021 campaign.
She’s a Kuemper Catholic graduate who has spent the last few seasons as an assistant in Audubon under previous head coach Liz Stein. “I heard that she was leaving and I did have some of the players kind of pester me, if you will, about taking the job. In the end, it seemed like the right thing to do for me and my coaching career. I was really excited to take over and she had a great program set up so it was a nice, smooth transition and I’m excited for the season.”
She describes the transition as very smooth, thanks in large part to coaching the JV team for a couple of years. “I got to work with some of the girls that I have now when they were younger. It’s just been a really smooth transition. This summer we’ve been working on fundamentals and fine tuning those before the season beings. We’ve spent a lot of time in our new weight room. We just got a new weight room so we had a lot of girls show up for that and work hard so that’s been really exciting. We’ve spent some time working on our rotations during scrimmages so that was really awesome to get to see the girls and move them around and work on some rotation stuff. It’s been a great summer.”
As a player, Gruhn participated in two state tournaments and learned a lot from coach Keith Stickrod. “I love volleyball. I love the game and learned a lot from Keith Stickrod as I was growing up.” She says, “He is all about that front row and is a very aggressive coach. I’m looking to instill that in our players. We are looking to have a strong front row this year and be on the attack. I want to utilize quite a few hitters and we are going to be a more aggressive team and try to be scrappy as well.”
