Northern Tier Sports Report

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NTL VOLLEYBALL: TOWANDA LOOKS FOR IMPROVED 2024 CAMPAIGN (2024-08-21)

BY CHRIS MANNING
Northern Tier Sports Report
Last year for Towanda volleyball was a learning experience for a new head coach and young squad. This year the Knights have higher expectations as they return nearly all of last year’s team.

“I’m really excited,” said second year coach Cassie Smith. “We have a lot of fantastic returning players, we have a lot of young players. I love seeing the interest grow for Towanda volleyball, so I’m really excited to see what’s in store for us.”

Their key returnee is Brooklyn Evans, who led them in blocks with 59, and also finished with 109 kills. Other key returnees are Kaya Johnson (139 points), Caedence Wells (39 aces), and Karis Flynn (103 points, 114 assists, and 116 digs).

“(Shaylee Greenland) was definitely a tough loss, there’s no doubt about it,” Smith said. “She was a very experienced player, but we do have a little bit of depth there. We do have Karis Flynn coming back in that setter position, so we look forward to having her again.”

The biggest area of focus, and has been since Smith took over, is getting their passing down.

“It all starts with a pass,” Evans said, parroting once of Smith’s favorite lines. “Without passing you can’t really do anything else.”

But once they get the pass they feel they’re a very dangerous team.

“I think our skill set is very diverse, and very good,” said Lariah Long. “Last year, I feel like we’ve learned to work on our skill level, and our cooperation with each other.”

One area the Knights feel is a strength is their presence at the net.

“We’re always looking for more kills, it starts with our setter and goes right to our hitters,” Smith said. “We’re looking to be a bit more powerful at the net. We’ve got some young ones we’re excited about so we’ll see where that goes.”

Another strong suit they have is chemistry. Having played together all of last year Towanda feels they’re much more in tune with each other coming into camp this year.

“They really help each other, and they teach me a lot,” said Long. “We have a lot of positivity on our team, and we push each other to get better with everything we do.”

Still, they’ll only go so far as their defense will take them.

“Volleyball is such a defensive sport,” Smith said. “It is what it is, it comes with the territory. They’re working really hard, we hope to continue those skills - they’re young and they’re really starting to fine tune their passing, and just having a great attitude comes with it.”

The Knights would like to end their playoff drought this season, which is one of their top goals.

“We’re going to push for that goal,” Evans said.

As for the league, it might be a tall order to compete for the NTL Large School title, but they aren’t giving up on the idea of being dark horses for that, either.

“Yeah, kinda,” Evans remarked. “Maybe a little bit.”

ROSTER

Lillie Maynard

Alyssa Dulaney

Brooklyn Evans

Nozilahon Ismailova

Kaya Johnson

Layla Miller

Lilyann Sproule

Caedence Wells

Karis Flynn

Lariah Long