The Cumberland County Lady Jets are firing on all cylinders lately as they get ready to open the District Volleyball Tournament next week.
Cumberland County, currently winners in six of its last eight matches, split a doubleheader with Gordonsville and Smith County last week.
“I feel like there was maybe only one match this year that we probably didn’t have a chance to win,” said Cumberland County Coach Rodney Howard. “Other than that, it has been a revolving issue with errors. I think we’ve finally got those ironed out.”
CCHS lost 3-2 to Gordonsville in the first match of the day Tuesday. The Lady Jets lost 25-20, 24-26, 13-25, 25-20 and 15-12.
CCHS rallied to come back and knock off Smith County in the nightcap by a score of 2-1. The blue and gold won 16-25, 25-19 and 25-21.
“We’ve got a lot of momentum, a lot of energy and a lot of confidence going our way right now,” Howard said. “We’re pretty happy with that.”
The season-ending run has also been special for CCHS because they have had to overcome the loss of two standouts – Launa Howard and Jersey Myers. The two are marked as hopeful for the upcoming tournament.
“We moved a lot of girls in and out to try and find out where they should be,” Coach Howard said. “It all starts in practice for us. We run so fast in practice, we want to keep them in the game. We’re working on that recipe and we’ve found a way to make it work.”
The district tournament will open Monday, Oct. 5 with the quarterfinals. Cumberland County will host DeKalb County at 6 p.m., while Livingston Academy will travel to Watertown.
The winners of those matches will advance to the semifinals on Tuesday, Oct. 6. The Watertown/Livingston Academy winner will battle Upperman at 4:30 p.m. with the CCHS/DeKalb County winner facing Stone Memorial at 6 p.m.
The winners of Tuesday’s matches will then play at 7:30 p.m. for the district championship.
“For us to win the tournament, it is going to take a lot of determination on defense and really solid blocking,” Coach Howard said. “I say you’ve got to have a dog instinct. You can’t allow the ball to hit the ground.
“And if it does hit the ground, it does something to you that makes you angry.”
[Speaker 1]
It all comes in the practice mentality. So one of the things that I do, and I always say, you can make somebody give full effort by lining them up and then making them run within a certain amount of time. But it’s a different thing to make them compete and want to be the best and want to do the best that they can.
So what I do in practice is I actually practice with them now. And I make it hard on them. I serve at them, I serve floats at them, I hit at them.
I do all the things that they’re going to see in a game. And I make sure that I’m doing it just as good as or better than the girls that they’re going to see. So just the mentality of saying, hey, Coach Rodney does this to us, so we can play with these girls.
They’re not as good. So that’s one of the things that I do to make sure that they know that they can compete with anybody as long as I believe in them.
[Speaker 2]
Well, that’s a great idea. Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that. Coach, I guess the last thing to ask you is just your thoughts on what it’s been like with this season.
Everything that you’ve had to overcome, with the injuries and people being out and stuff, to get to the final and to start the postseason off with the tournament victory. I don’t want to say satisfying because it’s not over, the journey’s not over, but how good would it be to get this whole postseason thing going with a win?
[Speaker 1]
Oh, it would be tremendous. Last year, I think we kind of got cut short with injuries and a bunch of other issues that we’ve had that we should have been right there. So just to come back from all of that, all the drama, all of the injuries that we had and be able to come out with a win, it would just solidify the program.
That’s one of the things that I wanted to make sure I did when I got to CCHS was make it a volleyball school. And to do that and come out with a win in the district, that would just solidify that two district championships in three years when we haven’t had one since probably 2001 or something like that. So, yeah, that would be huge for us.
[Speaker 2]
Awesome. And you play DeKalb Monday at 6?
[Speaker 1]
Yes, we play DeKalb Monday at 6. Alright.
[Speaker 2]
Coach, listen, thank you for your time. I know you’re busy. I appreciate it.
Alright. Thank you, sir. See you.
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