Jenkins Tinkering With Livingston Lineup

While they remain winless on the season, Livingston Volleyball Coach Christie Jenkins said the team has gained momentum heading into this week.

Last weekend, the Wildcats traveled to Knoxville to compete in the K2 Volleyball Showdown at the Sunsphere. After losing game one, Jenkins said a team meeting cleared the air.

“We went in Friday and we used the same kind of lineup that we did and we were still not being successful,” Jenkins said. “So, I tried to talk to my older kids, the kids that had played last year, and I said ‘Tell me what you all think and I’ll tell you what I think’ as far as what we need to do as a team to get us to where we’re going to start winning.”

Jenkins said the main take-away from the conversation is that adjustments needed to be made to the rotation. She moved freshman Bella Harris from back row to front row and has moved veteran upperclassmen all around the court depending on the situation. While the Wildcats remained winless after the adjustments were made, Jenkins said they will be crucial in this weeks’ matchups.

“Those freshman are stepping up and learning,” Jenkins said. “They’re learning their roles as far as our team goes. It’s been a learning situation for all of us I feel like. I do feel like we’ll continue to get better and show people that we’re a different team than what we were this past week.”

This week Livingston plays three games starting against Gordonsville on Monday, Cumberland County on Tuesday and DeKalb County on Friday. Hungry for the first win of the season, Jenkins had a blunt conversation with her team about the state of the season.

“I just told them, ‘we can’t be okay with losing,'” Jenkins said. “Y’all are going to have to fight, like really fight. We’ve got to start winning ball games, like we can’t become immune to that. We’ve got to keep working and I think they’re ready to start winning too.”

The drive to win was on display when the Wildcats varsity team practiced on Sunday after just one day off the previous week and a tournament that saw them play four games in just over a day. Jenkins said the team has to work on a little bit of everything but said the team has athletes and offensive hitting is a strength of the Wildcats.

“I think they’re just going to go in and they’re going to be more confident,” Jenkins said. “And like I said, we’re going to learn and even if we struggle throughout the season, when it comes tournament time and we’ve done everything we need to do and we’ve improved, we’re going to be fine.”