DANVILLE — After 10 years, the Danville Area Community College volleyball team is ready to reintroduce itself.
The Lady Jaguars start play today at the All-In Opening Weekend Tournament in Rockford in their first game since 2014.
Today’s games against Illinois Valley and Wisconsin-Whitewater Rock County is the finishing up of a few years of work, a couple weeks of practice and a home scrimmage on Friday.
“We are going to have fun and show the community the team and get them into the game hype,” DACC head coach Shawna Jameson said on Wednesday. “We want to have some game energy in before going on the road.
“We have a 10-year gap, but it is a good thing to bring back to the community. It is good for DACC, good for Vermilion County and the surrounding areas.”
Most of the team will be from the area and ready to take advantage of the chance to stay at home.
“It’s real exciting to have a team here again,” Westville graduate Molly Doggett said. “Last year, I played at Lake Land and went through my hardships and I thought it would be best to go home. I saw the opportunity to be a part of this new program and it was a chance to start something new.”
Doggett is joined by Danville’s Lakin Alyea, Oakwood’s Nikita Taylor, Bismarck-Henning/Rossville-Alvin’s Rayvn Davis, Hoopeston Area’s Kaitlynn Lange, Georgetown-Ridge Farm’s Kendall Roberts and Covington’s Maddux Minick.
“Some of them haven’t had the opportunity to play much in this area after high school,” Jameson said. “Lakin Alyea and Rayvn Davis had a gap year and it is nice to have them here because they have a place to play now. The school closest to us is Parkland and they always have a great team with a lot of talent. So this side of the area does not have many opportunities unless you go to a big campus.”
But it is not just with local players as St. Joseph’s Peyton Williams and Halle Brazelton, Villa Grove’s Kayln Cordes, Paris’ Aubree Leader and Terre Haute’s Desiree Glaze also have
“I was looking at colleges two or three hours away and I would go to colleges that looked like there were not for me,” Williams said. “I reached out to Shawna and I was drawn to this school and I wanted to be a part of something new and set the tone for everyone else. I was excited for a fresh start and playing with people I didn’t know. I played a few of the girls during the season, but there were some that I didn’t and it has been good to know everyone.”
“Helping to start a new program was something to help people get inspired to make their own path,” Cordes said. “It was a little scary at first knowing only one or two people, but we instantly matched. there is no tension, we were instantly tight and that was very nice.”
In the last few weeks, the team has worked together on and off the court to come into today’s opener as a team.
“Coming here was scary because it was a lot of change and I didn’t know how things would turn out,” Doggett said. At the end of the day, it did work out because I was able to play and be coached by her (Jameson) because she is a great leader and I am glad to have her as a mentor for my future years.”
“Our defensive specialists are pretty sound, our outside hitters can have amazing days or they can be off, so they are all pretty equal. I don’t think we will have that one dominant player, but we will have multiple players doing something.”
After Illinois Valley and the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Rock County today, the Lady Jaguars will play Rend Lake and Olive Harvey on Sunday.
“I am super excited,” Williams said. “We have been working at the gym so hard and clicking has been a challenge, but in the last two weeks, things have been coming together and this weekend is going to be fun and a good opening for us.”
“I think it will be a learning curve at first to see how we play in different situations,” Cordes said. “You can’t tell in a practice situation against playing another team, but I think we will do very well.”
The Lady Jaguars will have their first home match on Sept. 6 against Kaskaskia and it will be the start of bringing the word out about DACC volleyball.
“The hardest part of bringing this back in having teams come to Danville,” Jameson said. “Teams haven been used to us not being here, so they have set in-stone schedules.
“We have only five home games this season, so getting the community here this year might be tough, but we are going to flip that next year and be at home more and work on getting our name out here. My goal in the next few years is to host our own tournament, but we are really trying to get our name out in these first couple of years.”
“What comes behind that is getting our name out there. People know that we were bringing it back,” Doggett said. “The first year was recruitment and the second year is actual creating a roster with games, so everyone is excited but nervous. We are excited to show everyone what we put together and what we have been working on and what we have to produce as a team. We are excited to show what we got.”