After six months of uncertainty over whether they would even be able to play this year, Franklin High School’s volleyball teams are preparing for the 2020-21 season.
When the varsity team fell in the second round of last year’s state playoffs, the loss forced an abrupt end to a season that coach Bekah Brooks felt could have stretched deeper into the tournament. Now in the final month of the strangest offseason in the program’s history, the Panthers have their sights set on a Mountain Six Conference title.
“The point I made in that last locker room talk, which seems like forever ago, was ‘remember that feeling,’” said Brooks on her address to the team after last year’s exit. “You want this season to go on as long as you can. Now with the condensed season, we’ve got to make it even better. We’ve got to make every game count because you’re not getting the normal 23 games. … We have the goal this year of being conference champs.”
After falling to Brevard in last year’s Mountain Six Conference title game, the Panthers enter this year determined to wrest back MSC control. Back for their senior seasons are All-MSC honorable mentions Canaan Drake and Taylor Ensley, who will help lead the team after several seniors graduated this year. Competition this year will be stiff, however: With the fall season having been pushed back until November, teams have essentially gotten three extra months of practice they would not normally have.
“I’m very confident. We’re already steps ahead of where I thought we would be,” said Brooks. “I think of this right now as what we’d be doing in the summer leading up to, and we’re already able to do more drills and certain things on a level above. There are some girls coming in on the JV level that don’t know a lot about volleyball, but they have caught on, or they’ll remove themselves from a drill to see what’s going on and we’ll kind of talk them through it. That way we can push everybody.”
With teams entering the season more prepared than they would in prior years, the level of competition should make for an intriguing 2020-21 season. For the past few months the team has conducted voluntary workouts in which Brooks has preached versatility on the court in an effort to create a well-rounded team. Although this year’s sports calendar affords the Panthers some extra time to prepare, it will likely create some unique challenges as well.
“Toward the end of our season, they could be playing a volleyball game, playing a basketball game, playing a volleyball game, playing a basketball game,” said Brooks of the overlap between seasons in this year’s COVID-shortened schedule. “It’s the ultimate athlete’s dream to just be playing games, but it’s going to be very hard on them. … Knowing that you could be in the playoff part of our season where if you win you go on and if you lose you’re out, the more positivity we can bring as a community to these kids - just uplifting them and knowing that they’re doing the best that they can do is [important].”
After a summer of shutdowns, FHS athletes across all sports have been eager to return to some sense of normalcy. Brooks said the team’s workouts have drawn an average of 25 athletes per day, and players are simply glad to be back practicing.
“We didn’t know if we were going to get a season, so now as it’s getting close there’s a lot of emotions, especially because it’s our senior year,” said Amy Tippett of her senior classmates. “It was weird not [practicing] because we’re used to starting when school’s still going and doing workouts all through the summer. Not having that was strange.”
As the longest-tenured players on the team, Tippet and her classmates will be tasked with leading the team to a Mountain Six conference championship this winter. She said she and her fellow seniors have tried collectively to set an example for younger players, a job made easier by the trust they’ve forged while playing together over the years.
“I think all of us love the sport more than any other sport we play,” said senior and All-MSC Honorable Mention Taylor Ensley. “We all do get along, so it’s just fun to be back with your family.”