Coach Peck, four seniors, return to Vals volleyball
Jordan Dawson/Bigfork Eagle — The Bigfork volleyball team works on drills two weeks ago to prepare for the fall season. The girls played in the Whitefish Tip Off Tournament last weekend and won seven of their ten games.
By JORDAN DAWSON / Bigfork Eagle
The Bigfork High School volleyball team is ready for a new season, and hoping to keep everyone healthy this year with three of the team's returning seniors coming off injuries from last year.
Bekah Bell, Rachael Luckow and Jill Hamilton all missed part of last season due to injuries. Roxy Thurman is the only senior on this year's team that played in all of the games.
"I think some of the girls coming back off injuries is going to be a good thing for us," Peck said. "When you haven't been able to play I think you come back with a hunger. Also, these girls are familiar with each other and that's an asset."
Other varsity returners include juniors Emily Hardman, Kelly Deaton and Claire Wilken and sophomores Madison Wood, Hannah Barrett and Mallery Knoll.
"I think they'll progress pretty quickly because we're pretty young," Peck said.
Volleyball head coach Yvonne Peck coached for three years at Bigfork High School before taking last year off to pursue her master's degree. Kelsey Jensen took over the program in Peck's absence, but stepped down after just one season. Afterwards Peck decided to return to coaching to ensure that the girls had a coach for this year. Peck is working with the team to get everyone used to different expectations and terminology.
It isn't the freshmen that are experiencing the biggest change, though; it's the sophomores. Peck has coached all of the ages except them at some point, having coached the kids Rotary volleyball teams for many years. But she began coaching in Rotary after the sophomores had moved on and she took last year off from coaching when they would have worked with her for the first time when they were freshmen.
The team has spent the last couple of weeks working on fundamental skills and understanding positioning and rotation.
"It's all pretty new," Peck said. "We'll try to get as many offensive threats as possible. I want us to be attacking the ball"
The first competition for the varsity team will come at the Whitefish Tip Off Tournament, which begins at 9 a.m. Saturday Aug. 30.
"There are some new teams in the tournament this year including Park City and Belgrade," Peck said. "I'm excited to see some of those teams from Central Montana that we don't get to play against unless we go to state."