MARBLEHEAD — After more than a year away from the court, the Marblehead volleyball team, like any fall team that had its season delayed, had been itching to start practicing.
And that pent up excitement has been pretty clear in the first few weeks of practice.
“It’s been awesome,” Marblehead coach Killeen Miller said. “You’re always excited to start the year, but to see the kids come in this excited has been great. Even just in the short time we’ve had, they’ve improved tremendously after a year and a half without touching the court.”
This year’s Magicians squad returns a good mix of older and younger players, and there’s plenty of talent across the board.
“We are bringing back a really young team, but there is so much talent,” Miller said “It’s actually one of the most talented teams I’ve ever coached. It’s a really good mix of a great group of seniors and young players.”
The talent starts at the top with a group of four senior co-captains — Anna Schluter, Abby Schwartz, Emma Lawler and Samantha Oberlander.
“They’re all really vocal out there,” Miller said of the seniors. “Anna and Abby have played dominant volleyball at their positions for us. During their time with the team, that group has really blazed a new path over the last two or three seasons. They’ve worked really hard and done a good job leading with a bunch of new players coming in.”
Junior Lilah Thompson and sophomore Keira Sweetnam will also bring a much-needed boost to the Magicians offense this year.
“Lilah has played really every position for us at some point,” Miller said. “She’s a strong player and we’re looking forward to using her to get some great shots. She’s a great hitter. And Keira is an outside hitter who has increased her power since last season.
“Last year, we really struggled putting the ball away,” Miller said. “The defensive game was much better than the offensive game. We could dig balls out and go back and forth with a team, but we couldn’t finish. We’re really looking to improve on that this year.”
Improvement will be a common theme for the Magicians after a tough year in a strong Northeastern Conference in 2019. Miller is hoping the lessons carried over from that year will help Marblehead turn things around now.
“We had some really big losses last year,” Miller said. “But I think it helped build some mental toughness for us. We still worked hard last year and we want to keep doing that this season.”
There may not be a state tournament to shoot for at the end of the season, but Marblehead won’t be treating any game less importantly than any other year.
“When you look at it this season you can really start to ask yourself, ‘what are you playing for?’”Miller said. “We’ve come to terms with all of that so far and talked about how we really owe it to the older kids and ourselves to be our most competitive selves possible. We’re going to compete every day and come together as a group. If we ever looked back and we could’ve worked harder we’d regret that. We’re going to play every game like a state championship match.”
Marblehead opens up the season Thursday evening (5:30) at home against Beverly.
