Defending area champ Ridgeland in rebuilding mode
In a span of 12 months, the Ridgeland Lady Panthers have gone from being the most experienced team in Region 6-AAAA to perhaps being the youngest.
Thus the challenge facing head coach April Lemonds in 2017. How do you replace eight seniors from a region championship team that went to last year’s Class AAAA Elite Eight, including replacing All-State player Te’a Owens – the 2016 Walker County Player of the Year - and several more who signed on to play in college?
“I’ve never been in a situation where you’re basically restarting your entire team,” Lemonds said. “I only have four returning varsity players and only really two that were on the court with any consistency, so we’re still just trying to figure it out.”
It may be a daunting task, but Lemonds says there are reasons she is optimistic.
“These girls are willing to put in the work,” she explained. “They are very attentive and they listen to the things I tell them. We’ve had some former players come in and help us out too. The (former players) have told them, ‘hey, this worked for me’, so our players have listened and have taken the time to do things correctly.”
Ridgeland will have just three upperclassmen on the varsity roster this season with Abbi Witherow and Rachel Atchley set to take on leadership roles as they are the only seniors.
“I coached both Abbi and Rachel when they were freshmen playing on the junior varsity team and they are good kids,” Lemonds said. “Abbi was a big contributor in our success last year. She played some good middle back (row) for us. And Rachel is going to be our setter and running the show. She’s smart and agile.”
Behind them is just one lone junior, Tori Elliott.
“Tori is a hard worker,” the coach added. “She’s always ‘yes ma’am’ to everything I say and she always tries to get better.”
The final returning varsity player is sophomore Jayda Jenkins, who recorded 36 aces and 244 digs as a freshman. The rest of the sophomore class are new faces to varsity volleyball. Middle hitter Sarah Williams is the younger sister of graduated senior Taylor Williams. Landree Dunn will also fill a middle hitter spot. Tenley Moore will be a defensive specialist, while first-year player Tara Taylor will see time on the back row.
The roster will be rounded out by the squad’s only freshman, outside hitter Sydney Davis.
The Lady Panthers will also have Tanya Stinson back on the bench as an assistant coach.
“Our motto for this year is ‘get better everyday’,” Lemonds added. “We all know we have work to do, but we’re all willing to put in the work and the effort to get to where we need to be. We don’t know if we will get to where we need to be this year. We hope so, for Abbi and Rachel’s sake. We may not win a region title (this year), but we at least want to be competitive in our region.”
She added that the key would be developing chemistry.
“The thing with this group that’s different from last year is that we don’t have (the team chemistry) that we had with all those girls last year who had played together since the sixth grade,” the coach said. “That kind of stuff carries over on to the court and that’s just something we’re going to have to work on. Trusting your teammates to do their job is something that will come in time. You just have to worry about getting your own job done.”