Lady Dragons drawing closer to 40-win season
In today’s high school volleyball, 40 is the new 30.
It used to be that when a program reached 30 wins in a season, that was considered an elite season. Now, it’s still not something to be shunned. It’s just not as elite as it once was.
Carroll is in position to hit the 40 mark again. The Lady Dragons (31-3, 3-0 in District 7-6A) bested 30 wins last week with victories over Haltom and Richland. Now the program is looking for its fourth consecutive 40-win season. Carroll went 43-4 in 2014 when it advanced to the Class 5A Region I tournament.
There’s a really good reason why the standard has changed. Given that programs play roughly 10 matches in tournaments in each of the first three weeks of the season and that the UIL has allowed pool play results to be a part of the record, it all adds up.
“You never take any win for granted,” Carroll head coach Ryan Mitchell said. “As many games as we play now, it does change everything. Winning 30 games is a big deal. But when you get to 40, you really did some things right. It’s a new measuring stick.”
Carroll played host to Euless Trinity on Tuesday. The Lady Dragons enjoy the first of their two byes on Friday. There is a little bit of an advantage because Carroll will play two of the top 7-6A teams the following week, Coppell and Colleyville Heritage.
“I think our bye comes at a right time because we get to prepare for how we want to approach these teams,” Mitchell said. “We used last week [against Richland and Haltom] as a way to keep our focus for our players. When you’re playing in six rotations, you want to make a positive impact every time you’re out there.”
To serve and to be served
Two of the areas that Mitchell wanted to make sure were cleaned up this year – if not stronger – were the serving game and the serve receive game. Mitchell had a chance to break down both elements of this team.
Serving – “It started a little a slow because went spent a lot of the time in the offseason working on our aggressiveness and how to manage serving from the end line. We missed a lot early. We weren’t taking teams out of their systems. But it’s started to change within the last weeks. Our players are doing a better job of going with velocity and angles. They’re starting to go for it more. I’m excited the way it’s going. We’ve seen some really strong improvement with [junior libero] Alli Bliss, [senior libero] Brayden Gruenewald and [junior setter] Lisie Kit.”
Serve Receive – “Honestly, it’s been our struggle right now. We’ve been inconsistent. When we’re in our serve receive, our system is really good and we’re tough to beat. When we fail, we allow other teams to play with us. We struggle with our offense if there times we want to get our middles [blockers] involved. For this group, it’s about confidence. Instead of being reactionary, we have be more proactive. The last two weeks have shown improvement. But it’s an area that if we want to be the kind of team we want to be, then we have to be better there.”
Notable
As expected, junior outside hitter Rachel Meyne [sprained ankle] did not play last week. However, Mitchell said he was expecting her to play Tuesday against Trinity.
This story was originally published September 21, 2015 at 3:55 PM with the headline "Lady Dragons drawing closer to 40-win season."