Mustang volleyball redefines weakness

You work on your weaknesses enough, they become your strengths.

That’s the case, at least, for the Herriman volleyball team.

The biggest weakness of the Mustang team last year was inexperience. Six of the varsity starters had never played a game. Those six began this season with an entire year of varsity under their belts. Every member of the varsity team this year had previous varsity experience.

“They had that full year of learning our concepts and our schemes,” head coach Bryan Nicholson said. “We didn’t have to have to teach as much this year.”

The team only had two seniors this year, outside hitters MacKenzie Thornock and Abby Budd.

“We were still young,” Nicholson said. “But now we’re experienced.”

The team’s other weakness last year was passing.

“We spent so much time working on it in the off season and worked so hard that it’s now one of our strengths,” Nicholson said.

Nicholson said the team had eight freshmen play this year on either varsity, JV or sophomore level, which is evidence that Herriman High is still only a second-year school.

“But we set some team goals,” he said. “We decided that we are not settling for the stigma that if you’re second-year school, you should only go so far. We’re trying to eliminate that mindset with the girls, and they’re doing a good job buying into that, and not settling for what a typical second-year school should do.”

Nicholson hope the team would make the playoffs this year, but it fell short with a fifth place Region 7 finish. The top four teams advanced to state.

The team opened the year with an encouraging display at the Skyline Varsity Tournament of Champions Aug 20. The team won five games. In August, the Mustangs went on to defeat Granger (3-1), lose to Woods Cross (3-0), then win against Cyprus (3-0). The team headed into September with a loss to East (3-2), but defeated Logan (3-2) and opened its region play against Hillcrest with a victory (3-0). The team then lost four in a row to Murray (3-0), Skyline (3-0), Olympus (3-0) and Westlake (3-0). The Mustangs went into October with another win over Hillcrest (3-0); then lost again to Murray, Skyline and Olympus. The Mustangs finished with a 7-14 overall record and a 2-7 region record.