It took Oglethorpe County volleyball coach Brianne Harrison days to read all the congratulatory messages after her team lifted the Class A state championship trophy last fall.
“It was so cool to see all of our school and the community come together,” she said. “They were so excited, and I’ll never forget it was like everybody was texting me that day. I couldn't read all my messages. It took me forever.”
The title capped a 32-8 record and a 21-match winning streak to secure the program’s first state volleyball championship. Now, Harrison and the Patriots are faced with one of the most challenging tasks in sports: defending a title.
“We have to work as hard, if not harder, than everybody else,” she said. “There are going to be teams out to get us this year, and I don’t want to see our team eliminated in round one, or not even make it there. I have high expectations.”
Though the Patriots return five of six starters, the new season offers a clean slate.
“We’re starting over,” junior outside hitter and state championship match MVP Leanna Newton said. “We have a fresh team, and it’s not going to be guaranteed. That’s just going to keep us working harder.”
Returning starters
The Patriots enter the season with an experienced and tested core.
Newton leads the way as an outside hitter and leader. The junior led the region with 425 kills last season and led the team with a .315 hitting percentage.
“It's just a different feeling in the room because she has such a commanding presence, but not in a terrifying way,” Harrison said. “She is the best teammate. She’s always helpful, encouraging, and she truly leads by example. Whichever college ends up with her is hitting the lottery because she just uplifts everybody.”
Newton, fellow outside hitter Nora Turner and setter Naomi McPeake played in a team-high 101 sets last season.
McPeake, a sophomore, led the team with 120 aces and 309 digs, and returns as the primary setter.
“I think she has improved and matured a little bit,” Harrison said. “She also grew in her confidence, and she’s good at placing the ball where it needs to be with our hitters. Being a freshman is hard when everybody’s older than you, and at first, there were some. It was kind of bumpy, but she figured it out. I mean, she had the best freshman year. They won state, and she was the setter that got them there.”
Sophomore middle blocker Alexis Fleming and senior defensive specialist Haley Matthews, who were both on the court during the state championship-winning point, return.
Turner, a senior, will step into the spotlight as an outside hitter following Elizabeth Cook’s graduation.
“I keep telling her, ‘Senior looks good on you,’ Harrison said. “She has a good attitude, is at every practice that she can be at, and is stepping up her game. She has really just stepped up in a way that her team needs her to be. It's good to see other people fill that role.”
Newcomers
Harrison tested Turner as a middle blocker during summer scrimmages, moving Sophie Nash to the second outside hitter position.
“She's (Nash) a consistently strong server,” Harrison said. “Right now, for her, the only thing that she's got to really get used to is transitioning off the net and expecting the ball.”
Ultimately, Harrison said giving Turner more chances at the outside position is the right decision, placing Nash on the right side.
Nash is the only freshman and is making the jump from middle school to the varsity, following in the footsteps of Newton and McPeake, who both did the same.
“I mean, that’s a huge learning curve,” Harrison said. “So I think all those games we played this past July got her feet wet a little bit. I think she’s starting to understand how fast she has to be, and she also has to trust our setters to get her the ball and expect the ball to come to her.”
Sophomore Caroline Caldwell has moved from JV, and will see reps as a middle blocker and outside hitter. Junior Mirakle Merritt, who played seven sets last year, is expected to fill the other middle blocker position.
The libero role is less certain. The GHSA changed rules to allow two liberos on the court at one time. The change opens the door for a wider rotation at the position.
Harrison said sophomore Ana Vu, junior Lannah Scarborough and Matthews will rotate throughout the season.
The Patriots also added Commerce transfer Azalee Ring, who plays as a defensive specialist and setter. Ring, a junior, is a three-year varsity player and logged 63 sets as a freshman.
“She's got good energy,” Harrison said. “She tried out with us over the summer and she was very energetic, hustled and is encouraging.”
Keys to the season
Good attitude: Stay positive, support each other.
Play as a team: Communication and teamwork.
- Be solid passers: Limit mistakes, give hitters opportunities.
Region competition
The move to Region 8-AA adds Prince Avenue Christian School. The rest of the region includes Athens Academy, Banks County, Commerce, Providence Christian and Rabun County, largely the same teams from last year.
Region teams will face each other once and won’t play a region tournament, a decision voted on by the coaches. The change is in response to GHSA’s new power-ranking playoff system.
Providence was 10-0 in the region last year, but lost to Mount Paran in the third round of the private school playoffs.
“I'm not excited about it, but it's something that our coaches voted not to do,” Harrison said. “There were arguments for and against it. People said playing an area tournament actually helped our postseason ranking and other people said it actually hurt it.”
The move means that non-region matches matter more than ever. The Patriots will face defending Region 8-AAAA champion North Oconee on Aug. 18. It allows the Patriots to play a handful of new opponents, including Jackson County.
“The goal is to win as many as you can,” Harrison said. “Hopefully, the people we’re beating are beating everybody else, too, because that counts in your favor towards your power season ranking. But yeah, we have a lot of people that are bigger schools than us. There are people that we’ve never played. It’s going to be fun.”
The byproduct of this change means that the Patriots will have only four home matches.
“It’s hard to get matches,” Harrison said. “Everybody’s like, ‘We’re state champions. We should have more.’ I agree, but those people don’t want to give up their home game. Scheduling was a nightmare.”