Devilettes working hard
Staff Photo, Shane Mettlen
Culpeper County High School senior Emily Watkevich gets ready to serve in practice Tuesday at the CCHS gym. The Blue Devilettes have a new coach in Chris White and say they are working harder on conditioning this preseason than in years past.
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Shane Mettlen
Published: August 12, 2008
When Chris White took over the Culpeper County High School volleyball program he quickly figured out what his first order of business is.
The first-year Blue Devilettes coach inherited a solid group of returning players for 2008, but was surprised to find out the team wasn’t in the kind of shape he expected as tryouts began last week.
“The only thing I saw that kind of shocked me was the lack of ability to continue on,” White said. “The endurance wasn’t there so that’s why we’re doing a lot of conditioning this year.”
So while much of the practices last year were devoted to drills and work with the ball, White has instituted a new workout regime that has players going on long runs across the CCHS campus and plenty of work pounding out sprints outside the gymnasium.
“Last year they would win a couple of games and lose a couple of games at the end because the opponents were better fit than we were,” White said. “We’re going to fix that.”
Despite the opening of Eastern View High School, which took away about half the student body from CCHS, the Devilettes return a core group from last year’s team. Seniors Emily Watkevich, Danielle Cooper and Kaitlin Carver all played big roles on last year’s varsity, as did juniors Kelly Dubell and Megan Chamberlin, who returns as a two-time All-Cedar Run District selection.
“Last year we did conditioning, but it was within the drills,” Chamberlin said. “There wasn’t as much focus on it.”
The players think the extra exercise will help once the season begins Aug. 21 at Courtland.
“We’ve been conditioning a lot more than we ever had,” Chamberlin said. “I think we’ll be ready. I know we’ll be fit. Friday we didn’t even touch a volleyball we just did two and a half hours of conditioning. It’s been intense.”
The Devilettes are hopping the intensity pays off in close matches this season.
“We’re going to be ready to play five full games every match if we need to,” White said.
Shane Mettlen can be reached at 825-0771, ext. 127 or
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