By By BRIAN HAINES, Brian@wdnweb.com, Sports Writer
WILLIAMSTON — Heading into the 2010 volleyball season there were a lot of questions surrounding the newly-created Riverside team, which was formed after Williamston High School merged with Jamesville High School.
Both Williamston and Jamesville have had solid individual traditions when it came to volleyball, but there was no timetable for how quickly the players would mesh together, or if they even would in the school’s first year.
Perhaps the bigger question for Knight’s coach Herbie Rogers was which player or players would step up and fill the giant vacated shoes of Katie Paschal and Heather Jackson.
For four years Jackson, who was best know for her all-out hustle and pinpoint accurate passes, was the backbone of some very successful Williamston teams, while the explosive Paschal dominated at the net during her junior and senior seasons. In their final year at Williamston, the duo was tabbed the WDN co-players of the year.
The absence of Paschal and Jackson not only left Rogers looking for ways to make up for their production but their presence as well, as the team headed into the season with Meredith Robertson being the lone senior on the team.
As it turned out, that one senior was pretty good as Robertson was named the 2010 WDN Volleyball Player of the Year, and the coach wasn’t too bad himself. Together, Robertson and Rogers led Riverside to a 22-3 record and a trip to the East Regional Round of the playoffs.
For Rogers, it was only the second time in his career that he would get a team that far in the playoffs, and for that effort, the Knights’ skipper was tabbed the WDN Volleyball coach of the Year.
Any coach will tell you that each season takes on a life of its own, and for Rogers this year was no different.
“This season was different because we ended up blending girls from two different programs into one and the girls did a great job,” Rogers said. “It started back in May and then meeting and practicing in June and July and coming together and working extremely hard during the summer. It paid off during the season.”
While most suspected the blending of two solid programs would produce a good team, there were no guarantees. In the NBA, the Heat added LeBron James and Chris Bosh to play with DeWayne Wade and the jury is still out on whether or not that will work. A lot of talent does not always add up to a lot of wins.
Fortunately for Rogers, he had a chance to get to know some of the Jamesville players before 2010.
“I had the opportunity to coach some of the Jamesville girls in travel volleyball with a team last winter,” Rogers said. “It gave me a chance to know a lot of them.”
The other big factor in the team’s success was the leadership of Robertson.
“It all starts with Meredith, she was no doubt our leader,” Rogers said. “Being our only senior a lot fell on her to make sure everything went well as a team. There is stuff that as a coach I need her to do, and she did a great job with that. She made things a whole lot easier on everybody because she cares about everybody on the team equally. Her taking care of that made my job a whole lot easier.”
This season Rogers was tabbed the WDN Volleyball Coach of the Year for the third straight year, and Robertson said the key to Rogers’ success is his attention to detail.
“He’s very big on fundamentals and getting the little things right,” Robertson said. “He explained to us before the playoffs that ‘I lost to state championships because of small mistakes so maybe I should emphasize this more. If you make a pass and it is not directly on target, the next time you go out there make sure it’s on target because that could make the set better and maybe the hitter will hit it down a little bit harder and score.’ He has always been like that and I think that is why we do so well.”
Robertson said another reason why Rogers’ teams do well is that he gives 100 percent to the team and asked his players to do the same.
“He always tells us ‘I go home and I make a sheet, front and back, of what I think we need to improve on. I take my time to do that. Please take your time to execute this because this is what’s going to make us better.’ And I think that is what’s really helped us.”