By Nairobi Jones, staff writer
Indian Trail High School & Academy’s girls volleyball team is off to a good start with a committed group of players and an experienced coaching staff. In fact, Coach Ashley Vanderhoef helped launch the volleyball program here at Indian Trail. She has been coaching here for seven years and was at Bradford High School before that.
“The girls are playing really well,” said Coach Vanderhoef.
Amaya Anderson, (Jersey No. 10 on the Hawks), has been playing since she was 10 years old, just so that she can show people what she can do.
“They are a really dedicated, fun group of girls,” Vanderhoef. They practice after school for 2 1/2 hours daily.
Still the sport comes with its own challenges.
“Such as trying to get the whole team to be on the same page during a game,” Anderson said.
The team has beaten Bradford twice already and has placed third in some of the tournaments. Most Tuesday and Saturday nights, the Hawks compete in conference meets. When they’re not playing in meets, they are practicing every day except for Sundays, said Vanderhoef.
Although Vanderhoef tries to keep it fun and relaxing, practices consist of a lot of high pressure training to get players ready for intense situations in case they need to pull through a point. Even though the team wants to place high in conference, there is something else they really want to do: Beat Tremper. There is something about losing to Tremper High School that makes them really want to compete against them. The team believes it can go neck-to-neck with the Trojans and beat them.
So hopefully next time Indian Trail meets Tremper, the Hawks will soar to new heights.