LOCAL SPORTS: West Shamokin Girls Varsity Volleyball Team Looks Forward to New Season

by Jake DeLuca

If there is one thing that West Shamokin has been known for since its inception it would have to be a strong volleyball team, and this year entering the Heritage Conference the Wolves look to continue that success.

The girls played their first scrimmage at Hempfield – a Quad-A WPIAL school this past Saturday, which was a good test for the girls going against higher level competition. This weekend the girls will travel to Derry Area to take on some more familiar Double-A schools. West Shamokin Head Coach Dan Spencer expects these scrimmages to help mold the team for the regular season.

“I’m really looking to see how we match up against teams like that (Hempfield and other quad-a schools) down the road, so the scrimmage is very important to us. Then we have another scrimmage against Derry which will have more double-a players and teams that we should be able to compete with pretty good. It’ll be good for us,” Spencer explained.

This years team has a good group of young and old players lead by Katie Glover and Andrea Orlosky along with other key pieces, Coach Spencer explained.

“We have two players back from last years team that are very strong players. Katie Glover who was an all-state level performer and not too far behind her as far as I am concerned is Andrea Orlosky. Both of them are experienced players and you can build around them pretty good. We did graduate six seniors, all of which played big roles so we have a lot of holes to fill, but I think they are starting to get in shape. I have a new setter in Olivia Fusaro, who has never set before. She is a junior who played back-middle for us last year, but she is coming along very quickly.”

Spencer went on to discuss how prepared his team is for the upcoming season.

“We are probably on a scale from one to ten (preparation level) from my point of view I would put us at a six. We still have some holes and we have some young players who have got to make statements. Basically what I told them today is that the positions are there, grab them, show me they are yours. So we’ll see, we have had some injuries that set us back a little bit, but they are coming along,” said Spencer.

One characteristic all successful teams have no matter the sport is chemistry, and Coach Spencer believe his teams chemistry is second to none.

“I’ve appreciated their togetherness. I had a couple girls that I wanted to take to (spring training) camp, they were freshmen – so I said to my older players that I think she deserves to go and the older players would say ‘yeah she does deserve to go’. It’s easy for us (coaches) to say she should go, but for your seniors and leaders on the team to say ‘yeah, she should come with us, she’s playing pretty good’, that’s nice. It makes it easier for the freshmen to transition, and it makes it easier for us coaches to see if they can fill a spot on this team,” Spencer said of his players.

West Shamokin players and coaches will continue practicing this week before they head to Derry Area to participate in their second scrimmage.

For more game information for the West Shamokin girls’ volleyball team, you can head to www.heritageconference.org and click on the West Shamokin tab for their full schedule.