News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
With just three games remaining in the regular season, the Cumberland County Jets are on a 13 game win streak and competing for the top spot in their district.
The Jets have not lost a match-up since 9/7 and head coach Rodney Howard said that all of his players are peaking at the right time. He identified a late August loss to Stone Memorial as a turning point for the team.
“I am really thankful that we lost early on in the season because we’ve switched that up, moved some girls around and started a new defense,” Howard said. “And since we have had that new defense, we’re 12-0. So, it was really good to be able to learn from our loss because it did help us later on.”
Howard said since teams were not hitting at them to begin the season, they put their libero Dani Hassler in the middle to maximize offense. But after facing tough competition that exploited openings in their defense, he said changes were necessary.
“We play a traditional college style defense,” Howard said. “With three blockers, we double block on one or the other side depending on our competition. And then we play two with one back. And when we do play that one back, the one back is usually our outside hitter, so we can attack from that back positions as well. So, it works out all the way around.”
Since the changing of schemes, Howard said that Hassler’s performance has improved and the team relies on her serve-receive skills. But, serve-receive is an area that the whole team needs to shore up heading into the post-season.
“We have to get those passes to the front,” Howard said. “We have really good hitters and unless we get a pass up where our setters can get to it and we have a good swing at it, our hitters are ineffective.”
