Mustang volleyball looking to make strides in 2024
Mustang volleyball players practice for the new season. Photo by Michael Kinney
By Michael Kinney
Mustang Times
The Mustang High volleyball team will close out a busy preseason schedule this week before roaring into the 2024 campaign next week.
This will be the fourth year under coach Blake Newman and the veteran skipper sees potential in what the Lady Broncos can become this year.
“I feel like our program has been coming together good over these last few years. And in my opinion, we have a chance to be the best team that we’ve put on the floor in the last four years,” Newman said. “We’ll see how it works out. You can talk about it, but you got to be about it is what I tell these kids.”
However, in the early going of the preseason, Mustang hasn’t always show the consistency Newman wants out of them. Coming off the Southmoore Scrimmage over the past weekend, the coaching staff has noticed the team playing differently on the road than at home.
“I’ve seen a lot of really good things out of our team. We’re really excited just about the equal mesh between experienced and younger players that we have,” Newman said. “We’ve put in a lot of really hard work this summer in the weight room. We’ve been working hard here in our own gym. It’s just a matter of putting it all together when we take it on the road and we seem to really have a high level of practice and just the last two scrimmages we’ve been just a little bit sloppy. And one thing I’ve kind of noticed just by the teams I’ve seen at these two scrimmages is there’s a lot of parody this year. It looks like a year of anybody could beat anybody.”
The mix of young and experienced players includes Reagan Glann, Emrie Brown, Gracelyn Higgins and Sya Williams.
“I feel like the expectation that these girls have had set on them since they were freshmen. This is the freshman class when I first came in,” Newman said. “So we’ve been very consistent as a coaching staff on expressing what systems we run or run in defense and the ideals and goals for our offense. They don’t change much. We just try to get better at executing them. And I feel like everybody knows what’s expected. Along with we’ve got some really good volleyball players.”
Mustang will tip off its regular season Aug. 13 at Norman North. They will then head north Aug. 16-17 to compete in the Sand Springs Tournament before going to Edmond Memorial Aug. 20.
