Coupeville Sports

   Lucy Sandahl (left) and Scout Smith are thrilled to be at volleyball camp. (Konni Smith photos)

Scout reunites with Maya Toomey-Stout (left) and Emma Smith.

   Sandahl, Ashley Menges (center) and Payton Aparicio come well-equipped for the multi-day stay.

The Wolves cap a successful camp with a group photo. (Cory Whitmore photo)

Coming off of its best performance in a decade, the Coupeville High School volleyball team is primed to make an even bigger splash this fall.

Helping the Wolves get ready to defend their Olympic League title, coach Cory Whitmore and 11 of his spikers attended an intensive four-day camp at Western Washington University July 5-8.

The view from court-side, courtesy Coupeville’s second-year coach:

Camp lasted a very full four days by normally being on the court by 8 AM and working until 8:30 PM at WWU’s newly remodeled Carver Gymnasium.

Our camp was the first open to summer camps – this put the WWU players and coaches in very excited moods and was fun to be able to have a sneak peek into the new facilities.

This year, we were able to bring along Lauren Rose, Payton Aparicio, Hope Lodell, Mikayla Elfrank, Kyla Briscoe, Ashley Menges, Emma Smith, Scout Smith, Maya Toomey-Stout, Lucy Sandahl and Zoe Trujillo.

It was a great mix of experience and upcoming talent. 

It’s hard for me to choose any one particular stand-out for their growth and/or effort, because every single one grew in some way or another and all put in a huge amount of effort.

I’m proud of the growth this group made as a whole – taking a new mix of girls to camp, some playing different positions, a lot of questions try to get answered while at team camp and I’m encouraged by the direction we took in both meshing as a unit and competing against other teams

Coupeville has been attending WWU Volleyball Team Camp for years now and that kind of familiarity creates consistency for planning and comfortability for coaches and players.

Their program is extremely successful under their coaching staff with a wealth of knowledge to instill upon each program that attends.

I also like the proximity and familiarity our players have to their program. Our players have gotten to know a number of their player over the years which has been fun to watch their progression.

And being that Bellingham is only an hour and a half up the road, we are able to return during the fall season as a team trip and see the Vikings compete themselves.

We were also lucky enough to have the same camp coach from the previous year, senior setter Kristina Tribley.

She was fantastic working with the girls and the two-year connection made the experience even more special for our team.

Another part of this particular camp that I like is that it is not simply a tournament – players work on skills based on individual positions, in small groups, as a team and then regularly compete as a team.

With various type games and focuses, it is not just scrimmaging. Our players were able to grow on numerous levels for various skills.

Throughout the camp, we learned out to focus on “the process” – the WWU program values growth over results and that mentality was instilled into us.

Players had to learn how to be patient and look at the little victories over the results and that fostered a comfortability in making mistakes as a part of growing.

We also made a focus to improve our communication style. As a team, progress was definitely made this camp.

Our last goal was to improve our hitting efficiency.

This was where “the process” was especially key – player had to learn how to lose a point due to a mistake, while celebrating a success in another area of the hit.

By the end of camp, that comfortability in letting mistakes go, translated into confidence which then led to kills.

In addition, our “volleyball IQ” was improved as well (where to place the ball, when to swing away).

After a post-camp, nearly full day of sleep, I’m energized toward our fall season.

I’m very much looking forward to seeing the girls take the lessons learned at camp, implementing them throughout the season and spreading that message to other players in the CHS volleyball program.

We have strong leaders on the team that grew as leaders but also helped to teach our younger players how to lead.

That experience is invaluable because it carries throughout summer, this season and into future volleyball season, being further passed down.

At the end of camp, the WWU players (camp coaches) recognize one player from their team deserving of recognition.

Coach Kristina said it was very hard for her to choose just one but she was incredibly impressed with Payton.

Payton was very strong from the service line, extremely consistent in the passing formation, made growth as an attacker and was a rock mentally for the rest of the team.

I could not agree more and I’m very happy Payton was recognized – her efforts in the off-season deserve notice.

Even though Kristin Bridges will not be able to coach this upcoming fall season, she had planned on attending camp with us, but due to early contractions she was hospitalized and roughly two weeks later she gave birth to Grayson Reid Bridges!

We are so excited for her and her family and can’t wait to meet the newest Bridges!