WILLIAMSTON — With the season opener looming for the Southside, Riverside and South Creek volleyball teams, all three schools, along with North Pitt, were able to work out some preseason kinks on Thursday during a scrimmage hosted by the Knights.
Southside coach Rosiland Grimes is going into her second season at the helm for the Seahawks and said that her team has put forth some good work so far this summer.
“They have been working extremely hard this summer,” Grimes said. “They have great attitudes and great work ethic and have been here every day and I think we may finish strong this year in conference.”
The Seahawks are led by a trio of returning senior starters in Katie Laughinghouse, Valarie Hodges and Kyajia Mourning and Grimes was impressed by the team’s play during the scrimmage.
“From what I’ve seen today, they look pretty good,” Grimes said. “I feel awesome having (Hodges, Mourning and Laughinghouse) back, they all have great attitudes and they’re awesome volleyball players.
“I think they’re going to be the strength of the volleyball team this year. They work really hard.”
Grimes also praised the efforts of junior Anjelica Tisdale and freshman Andrea Waters.
Riverside first-year coach James Ward played his second scrimmage of the week and said he is looking for his Knights to improve in all areas.
“We need to pick it up a little bit and get a little fire in us,” Ward said. “Our passing needs to really be sharper. We have to work on that. We’ve served pretty good, but we just didn’t pass that well and if you don’t pass well you can’t run the offense.”
The Knights, who will play their season opener on Monday at Northside, got a strong effort from some of its younger players on Thursday.
“I liked what I saw out of our junior group,” Ward said. “They might have passed the ball a little bit better than our starters did.”
When the passes got where they needed to be, Ward said his hitters delivered.
“When we’re clicking on all cylinders we’re ok,” Ward said. “D’Aysa Wilson can hit it as good as anybody. She’s powerful. … The same with Kiera Green in the middle. We just have to get the ball to setter Kasey Hall in the middle so she can feed it to everybody.”
South Creek looked sharp on Thursday and coach David Eubanks was feeling optimistic about the upcoming season.
“The girls have been working hard, I think we have some potential,” Eubanks said. “We just have to put it all together. … The key for us is to be consistant as far as serving and passing goes, but we have the potential to have a good season.”
The Cougars bring back nine seniors from last year’s 12-10 team and Eubanks said there are plenty of leaders on the squad.
“Lauren Sitterson returns for us at setter, (Tayla) Purvis returns at middle hitter and (Tysha) Griffin returns as our outside hitter,” Eubanks said. “We bring back three starters from last year and I’m looking for us to have a good season.”