Spearfish volleyball trending upward

Richards had spent the previous three seasons as the Spearfish freshmen volleyball coach as well as an assistant to the varsity team.

She said that helped her adjust quicker to the role of being head coach.

“It helped me to be a part of the program before stepping in as the head coach, because I had been a part of just the culture, kind of the ins and outs behind the scenes prior to becoming the head coach, so I kind of knew where we were starting, and what athletes were in the program at the time,” said Richards. “I think the best part was the seniors. They were my first group of freshmen, so it was kind of fun to go full circle with those guys, but it was definitely nice to have the knowledge of where the team was going into the season, and way back in the summer before fall ball, what to focus on.”

One of Richards first priorities after accepting the head coaching position was to change the culture of the Spearfish volleyball program.

“It wasn’t easy at the start, but we had some awesome girls overall. We have a very nice group of girls that are willing to do the hard things and make some changes,” said Richards. “One thing we implemented this year as a program our motto was strive to be. It was in that we had three D’s; dedication, determination, and discipline. So we just kind of approached that at the beginning and let them know that’s where we want to be. We had really great leaders to push us there. There is still some work that needed to be done there, but overall we took a huge step this season.

Richards also implemented the same thing that basketball does in promoting team unity.

“We kind of wanted to make things even across the board on some of these rules, and expectations we had. So their phones are put in the locker room before games and stay there the entire night of the matches, or if we were away, we actually collected their phones as they got off the bus. It was mandatory, and that we all stood together,” Richards said. “I think it is really important that those younger kids see the older kids playing, because that’s an end goal; to make them ready for the varsity. The varsity level is a whole different ballgame, and vice versa.

Richards said they had the varsity girls sit together for the younger levels matches.

“It’s not just varsity, A team, B team, C team, freshmen. We were the Spartan volleyball program, so we wanted to make sure we supported each other from top to bottom.” she said.

The season started with the girls playing well in spurts, but having trouble with their confidence late in matches when things didn’t go their way.

“We had some girls returning that had been part of the program prior to me stepping in as head coach. Confidence was a huge factor, and a lot of that was in the past we had some girls that would kind of come down pretty hard on the other players, so after they learned each other they knew that they were there for one another. We had the same end goal,” said Richards. “A lot of it was their skills. We were super young this year having two freshmen out there the majority of the time at the end, two sophomores, two juniors, and we had four seniors that played for us too, but when you are really young that game is really fast. So trying to build up the confidence that they can play at that speed was a big factor in the beginning, but we just kept working at practice, talki.ng a lot, and just trying to rebuild that mental aspect for volleyball.”

Richards said the team’s confidence began to grow about midway through the season.

“After we got a few of those wins and kind of went on that streak (winning five games in a row) there in the middle of the season, we definitely saw a difference there,” said Richards. “But I would say it’s pretty tough in our situation playing those high-level Class AA teams, so that was a pretty big obstacle too, but I think the girls handled that very well, going from different speeds.

“The pace was just different (in Class AA) no matter how you look at it, so that is another thing we are going to continue to work on moving forward,” Richards said.

Richards she was proud of how the team played this season.

 “Our goal was to be in top four in the conference and we ended up third which was really nice. We wanted to be 11 to 14 seed points wise, but we ended up 15th. Looking at all that big picture wise, us playing those Class A schools kind of takes a toll, but here recently the last time they made the Sweet 16 has always been the 16th spot, so getting that extra jump (to 15th place) was big,” Richards      said.

Richards talked about the team’s four seniors Callie Wince, Alivia Heairet, Tayler Duncan, and Kylie Wheaton, and what they have meant to the Lady Spartan volleyball program the past four       years.

:It was blast being with them. We joked about where we had started when they were freshmen to where we ended. I don’t think any of us were ready to be done yet because the girls we saw from beginning to end I didn’t feel the burnout this season that you sometimes do when volleyball gets a little long,” said Richards. “Kylie Wheaton got sick early on in week four, and she was out for like two and-a-half weeks. But she came to practice every day, worked hard, did exactly what we asked her to do even though she didn’t work her way back that starting position, but it didn’t go unnoticed the commitment she had to the team.

“I think that was hard for her where the other three seniors were in starting rotations for me, and had their spots, but this was the group we talked about. They were going to be the group to change the culture , and they definitely proved that they wanted to change that this year,” Richards said.

Richards sees bigger and better things in store for the Spearfish volleyball program going forward.

“I’m super excited for our volleyball program going forward knowing that the seniors spots are going to be tough to fill their spots because they came in with a lot of court time for us, but if you look overall at our team with those freshmen and solid sophomores playing all the way around in the middle for us. Our juniors are very solid, so I think the future is looking very bright,” said Richards. “Overall, looking at our sub-varsity levels, they all had winning records. The future is looking very bright for the girls’ that want to continue making change, so I’m very excited about the future of this program.”

To read all of today's stories,

or call 642-2761 to subscribe to our e-edition or home delivery.