The Nansemond River boys’ volleyball team turned out to be the little team that could. Warriors head coach James Vann entered the year with the moderate goal of a .500 season, accounting for the fact that this year’s team lacked height and experience. They ended up surpassing his expectations, going 11-8 overall and 10-8 in the district.

“So this put us at 4th in the district, not too bad!” Vann said.

This means that the Warriors qualified for the district tourney.

“Our first tournament game will be next Thursday, Oct 25,” Vann stated.

All tournament games will be played at Oscar Smith.

 

 

The field hockey regular season has come to a close for the public schools. Lakeland and Nansemond River high schools finished numbers one and two in the Southeastern District rankings, respectively. This is the 13th consecutive year the Lady Cavaliers have finished the regular season atop the rankings.

The district tourney begins tomorrow at Nansemond River High School with No. 3 Grassfield playing No. 6 Great Bridge followed by No. 4 Western Branch taking on No. 5 Hickory.

On Wednesday, the winner of the first game will play Nansemond River (7-6-2, 7-2), and the winner of the second faces Lakeland (15-1, 9-0) at the U.S. Field Hockey National Training Center in Virginia Beach. The district championship takes place Friday at the same location.

 

The King’s Fork varsity girls’ volleyball team (7-17, 4-14) ended up ninth in the district, but head coach Sarah Porter put things in perspective.

“As a whole, I felt like we had a lot of progress,” she said. “We lost some key players last year, and some of the returners really had to step up. They were challenged, because they had to fill some really big shoes and with a few of last year’s kids opting not to come back, there were a lot of new kids added to the roster.”

Several players who came up from junior varsity last year saw a significant amount of court time this season, leaving her optimistic about next fall. In the meantime, she has another goal for all of her girls, motivated, in part, by the uncertainty of what they will be up against in 2013.

“I would like to see more of our girls (JV and Varsity) get involved in the off season in some kind of volleyball — be it rec, travel or just coming to open gym,” she said. “With our districts changing next year, nobody seems to know exactly what is going on yet, so we need to be prepared for all levels of competition.”