PREPARING FOR THE YEAR: Straughn Lady Tigers give strong effort

Published 12:05 am Saturday, July 27, 2019

The Straughn Lady Tigers showed a lot of promise as they competed in the 2019 T.R. Miller Summer Volleyball Tournament on Thursday in Brewton.

Straughn opened up the tournament against a tough T.R. Miller team.

T.R. Miller was able to come away with a 2-0 win.

In the second match of the day, Straughn knocked off Laurel Hill 2-0.

The Lady Tigers earned a 25-23 win in the first game.

Straughn finished off the win with a 25-20 victory.

The day came to an end when the Lady Tigers fell to Jay 2-0.

“I thought we looked good at times,” Straughn head coach Daniel Rodgers said. “Considering we have had five practices this summer, I thought we looked like a team that has only had five practices. Compared to where we were at this point last year, we are light years ahead, but we still have a long ways to go.”

Rodgers said he saw some promising things from his team.

“What I was proud of was that we got to play everybody, they all got opportunities and I was able to see who is going to take advantage of opportunities and earn the spot,” Rodgers said. “It was really productive today. We got more out of these three games than we could have in three weeks worth of practice.”

Now the Lady Tigers can focus on what they need to improve on, Rodgers said.

“We got some things we know we need to work on,” Rodgers said. “We had some girls step up and had some younger girls step up. I’m excited. We have camp Friday and Saturday. I’m just excited in the direction that this bunch is going.”

Rodgers said there were a few things that really stood out to him in the tournament.

“We had some leadership today,” Rodgers said. “Something that hurt us was serving. We didn’t serve real well. We did a really good job at times of attacking and being aggressive. That’s kind of what I’ve been telling our team. We have got to be on the attack. When we struggled, we were really passive. I would rather them be aggressive and make a mistake than be passive and make a mistake. Those are some things we have to work on. I thought we were better being aggressive. We had some real good sets. We had some girls that had some real good swings, but our biggest thing is staying aggressive. We didn’t pass real well today. We have to get better passes, we got to get better back row and serve receives are some things we need to work on. Just saw a lot of things, but overall I was proud that we had some leadership and that is going to take us a long way.”