“Getting better and better” is the motto for the Straughn Lady Tigers volleyball team this season.

SHS coach Lori Kinsaul said she just wants her team to progress as the years go along.

“We’re older now,” Kinsaul said. “I have two seniors and the rest of them are juniors on the varsity team. So, I’m expecting the girls to make that next step.

“Every year I’ve expected them to get better as they have gotten older,” she said. “I just expect more out of them every year.”

With only two seniors on the team and the rest juniors, Kinsaul said a goal this season is to make it back to the Class 3A sub-state tournament.

“We made it to sub-state last year so I definitely hope to re-achieve that goal and do well enough to make it to state,” she said. “I definitely want to make it back. I’m very proud of them for the few years we’ve even had a team here at Straughn.”

Kinsaul said she couldn’t single out any one girl on the team to have a good season. She said that she would depend on each player to have a good year.

“We’re so all dependent on each other,” she said. “I need them all to have a good year. We’re only eight deep on the varsity team, so I have to have every one of them.”

In the last week of July, the Lady Tigers competed in a Flomaton summer tournament before starting practice Aug. 3.

Kinsaul said the players are hitting the ball more confidently now at practice.

“It’s going well,” she said. “With school starting and everything, it was good to get everybody back in their routines.

“Their hitting has gotten a lot better,” she said. “They’ve gotten their timing down. For the past two years, we’ve had to gradually get into hitting, but they’re more willing to get into now than they were before. They’re not as shy about doing it as they were before.”

For Straughn, the setter will be senior Stephanie Bracewell and junior Lakin Thornton. The libero will be junior Katie Beck.