Jana
Dennis
File photoLEROY – Pine River has opened another volleyball season and coach Jana Dennis has high hopes for this team.
“We lost four seniors last season,” Dennis said. “All four were valuable assets to our program. They were role models for the younger kids and set high goals for themselves. We have a team of 10 who I feel will play key roles in the success of this year’s team. They are striving hard to play for each other and give each other their all.
“I expect this year's team to flip the switch on what people think about us. We are tired of letting teams back into games and are ready to start finishing them. I think a strength of our team is always serving. We serve aggressively and take risks at times. We’ve had a great beginning of our season and have had a terrific mindset on our goals, our play and just trusting each other.”
Pine River traveled to Ludington for its first tourney and went 1-2 on the day. Pine River lost to Ludington 0-3, beat Reed City 2-1, and lost to Mason County Central 1-2.
For Pine River, Miriam Johnson had 17 kills, Alivia Martin added 12 kills, Alayna Nichols had 32 assists and 20 digs and Madi Sparks added 24 digs.
“We spent this tourney working through many different rotations and working on finding the most consistent ones,” Dennis said. “Overall this is not how we wanted our first tourney to go but we are confident that we will improve from here and look forward to our next competition date.”
