Front Row Play Key To Jets Volleyball Success

Under first year head coach Rodney Howard, the Cumberland County Jets volleyball team stands second in the district after going winless in 4A play last season.

The 17-5 Jets have 15 games remaining on their regular season schedule, but have already won more games than they played in the entirety of last season’s 2-13 campaign. Heading into this season, Howard said he wanted to bring a college environment to the Jets home games, but he also wanted their schedule to reflect that of a college team.

“I’m a firm believer in getting as much experience for these players as possible,” Howard said. “Getting as much game situations and getting their IQ build up. So, that’s one of the parts of playing a more of a college atmosphere, that’s what I’m trying to do to get them prepared for a college season.”

This season the Jets will play a total of 37 regular season games, and in the three years prior they averaged 18 games per season. Howard said player burn-out and exhaustion can come into play with a jam packed schedule, so he has had to design the season around keeping players happy and healthy.

“One thing I tried to do with the schedule is try to break it up,” Howard said. “We do have a lighter practice schedule in the season, just because of the burnout situation. But we also do stuff in the meantime to have a good time and have fun to kind of break up the monotony of all the play time.”

But based on their performances, the Jets are far from burnt out on volleyball. Howard said the front row play from Delayna Inman and Tessa Hayes has been the catalyst for this season’s success.

“Tessa has really been playing way above all expectations from me,” Howard said. “And then also, Delayna Inman. She came in as one of the high prospects for us and she’s just playing exceptionally well. Whenever she wants to kill a ball, she can just jump over a block and kill it.”

Hayes was moved to middle hitter after Howard experimented with different looks and line-ups, he said that Hayes’ move to the middle has been a difference maker in this season.

After a run of middling seasons for Cumberland County, Howard said his team is thoroughly enjoying this year.

“It’s a lot more fun to win,” Howard said. “But, I think it goes way deeper than that with these girls on this team. I don’t know if it’s a mutual bonding that we’ve had going on two years because they are so used to playing together. We’re having an extreme amount of fun.”

However, Howard is not having as much fun finding a solution to the Jets defensive woes this season. He said that serve receiving has been a sore spot, but after tinkering with player positions and line-ups, he thinks he has found a solution.

“We did switch our defense up to where we put people in the positions where they need to be,” Howard said. “We have better diggers, we have better pass receivers than most. So, what we tried to do was build a defense based on what we have and not what we want to have at this point.”

Howard said more than half of their practices are focused on shoring up any defensive miscues and if the Jets can improve on that end, they will be set.

“If we can make no more than three to four serve receive errors a game, it’s going to be hard to beat us.” Howard said.