By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
DAYTON, Ore.– This Summer has huge for the Dayton Volleyball team entering the first official week of the season.
Last year was huge for the squad. Their fifth-place finish was their best finish in at least 25 years, and that came off the heels of a slow start with a new coaching staff coming in under Sam Alexander in her first year. But they straightened out the ship, finished strong and set the foundation entering this Fall.
“Last year with Sam and Grace being new coaches, we were all kind of a mess at first. But I think this year with them set and we all played together, I think we’re going to communicate and trust each other more,” said Kadence Fuller.
Fuller, Kalysta Summerlin and Gabby Chupp return this year from last year’s squad to lead the squad, which has a year of experience under their belts. Chupp was the lone Dayton player to receive All-State Honors, a third-team All-State selection as a hitter.
The work they put in this Summer, the Open Gyms, the Club season, the Team Camp to start the month. It’s all adding up to what the Pirates are hoping to be another strong season. Monday will start the journey back to Coos Bay.
“It sucks losing at State last year. But having State and knowing that you have a season upcoming and you can still work better. A lot of us girls play club and some other girls who are talented on our High School team,” said Chupp. “We were so young last year. And knowing we still have everybody we had last year. I know we lost Katie (Freeborn) and Caterina (Cicioni) and knowing have mostly everybody is only going to make us better, so maybe we’ll go farther than we did last year.”
“We really focused on communication at the GETC camp…improve on and off the court, bond more together. Last year I felt we bond very much, so I think if we bond more, it’ll show even more on the court and off the court too,” Summerlin adds.
Dayton will be at the Blanchet Catholic Jamboree on August 27 before kicking off the regular season slate of games on August 29 in Medford. The Pirates first home game of the year will ba on September 1 against Taft.
