Massac County Volleyball trains with Illinois National Guard ahead of season
BELKNAP, IL (WSIL) - The Massac County Volleyball squad are the defending SIRR Ohio Division Conference champions. The lady patriots have lost some of their top players due to graduation. The reconstruction of the team is underway.
"Anytime you build a team, you challenge them. Challenge promotes growth and in this case it builds a team. It gives them some experiences with each other and with guys from the Army National Guard I think it's a great opportunity," Glen Faith, Owner of Mermet Springs said.
This great opportunity took place at Mermet Springs, less than 15 miles away from the high school.
"Who's going to step up as a leader on their teams and how that is going transition to the court this year as well. Who is going help their teammates when they are down a lot of physical challenges but they are also going to have to use their brains as well," Staff Sargent Adam Lock said.
The team building activates pushed the players to communicate, problem solve, and work together.
"The bottom line is, you are pulled out of your comfort zone in so many different ways. The only way to fight through that is you have to learn how to do it together; and again, that will all reap benefits on the volleyball court down the road," head coach Zach Miller said.
Several Lady Patriots players say they learned a lot from the event. They found out that leaders lead.
"It really shows it's not a one person team. It really needs everybody and it takes everybody to make a team," senior Libby Conkle said.
"We definitely pushed ourselves further today than we do on normal days at practice. This was only our second day back starting the season. We definitely weren't in the full swing as of yet so this really got us going to push ourselves further," senior Abagail Martin said.
"We had to constantly be talking to each other and constantly communicating in order to achieve the goal that was set and it was just working towards that on the volleyball court is what we need to do, everyone did so much better when we were like cheering people on and motivating and just on the court that is major when times get tough," Kinley Logeman, a sophomore on the team said.
