Vina jump starts volleyball program, will play junior high and junior varsity games this fall

The start of a brand new academic school year at Vina High School has also brought the beginning of a new athletic program. For the first time, Vina will have a volleyball program and the Lady Red Devils will start competition at the junior high and junior varsity level this season. 

“We’re really excited about it,” head coach Brittany Pannell said. “I’ve been wanting to do volleyball for several years, but we’re such a small school that it’s hard to have several sports competing in the same season. We already had cross country and that was kind of conflicting.

“We were the only school in the county that didn’t have a volleyball program,” she added. “It’s a growing sport and everyone is getting involved. It’s right for us to get involved, too.”

Pannell, who has been a math teacher at Vina for seven years and formerly coached the cheerleaders, said establishing the program was a long time in the making. Several years ago she said she asked about starting up the program, but at that time it wasn’t in the cards. This time around she said the excitement and enthusiasm was there for it.

“I had so many girls begging me to get volleyball going, so I asked again if we could have it. I got a petition going to see how many girls were interested in it,” she said. “It had been awhile since I asked. We got a new principal, and I asked him and he went straight to Greg Hamilton, the superintendent, and he let me start the petition for it. He saw that we had a lot of interest in it.

“I think we had about 50 to sign up and then we wound up having around 30-something that ended up trying out for it. I took 10 (players) for junior high and 10 for the JV team.”

Vina will not play a varsity schedule for another two seasons but will be eligible for championship play when it does. Pannell said the next couple seasons at the junior high and junior varsity levels will be a good two years of practice for players that are largely inexperienced.

“We’re not going to start varsity for another two years…so we get pretty much two years of practice games,” Pannell said. “One of the biggest challenges has just getting the basics down. None of these girls have really played before, so it’s just getting the basic drills and things like that down.”

Despite that inexperience, Pannell said the girls on the team are putting in the time and the effort.

“They’re hustlers,” she said. “I’ve got a good group of girls and they’re good athletes. I think over time they’re going to be really, really good, it’s just getting them use to everything. It’s a completely different sport.

“They’re a good group. They’re really nervous about our first game next week, but I think once they get a couple of games under their belt they’ll be fine,” Pannell added.

The Lady Red Devils will host Tharptown in the program’s inaugural match on Thursday, August 22nd.