Laramie Volleyball is in the Midst of a Youth Movement

A new season brings about a new and younger team that doesn’t feature a lot of experience for Laramie High School volleyball in 2019.

After finishing runner-up in 2018, the Lady Plainsmen face the challenge of having to rebuild to a degree. There are only three players that were in the main varsity rotation returning for this season. They are senior Jessica Crane and sophomores Alexis Stucky and Halley Feezer. Stucky earned All-Conference honors in the 4A East Conference as a freshman a year ago.

Fifth-year head coach Becky Baker said having gone through the experience of roster turnover from 2017 to 2018 is helping in the transition this year.

“I think last year was a really good learning experience and just to see kind of what leadership I expect from those seniors and those older kids, and what I want them to do, in terms of, leading those younger kids.”

Baker admitted they are even younger this year with just three upperclassmen, two seniors and one junior. The rest of the varsity is sophomores.

“We are going to have our learning curves, in terms of, who steps up in that leadership role, what are different people responsible for, so it’ll be really nice to have this first tournament to figure out what those roles will be.”

Laramie opens its season at the Cheyenne Invitational Volleyball Tournament Friday and Saturday. They will be playing six matches over the two days at all three Cheyenne High Schools.

Baker is happy about her team’s progress.

“I don’t know if I’ve seen a team grow so quickly… I’m already seeing kids do things that they were completely uncomfortable with three days ago. It makes me really excited to see how much more we can grow this season.”

The two seniors on this year’s squad are Jessica Crane and Morgan Brown. They visited with KOWB’s David Settle about practice, being a younger team, goals for the season, and some fun items.

Baker said the current focus has been on passing and defense.

“This team has a lot of height and a lot of things that I think we can use offensively, but those aren’t to going to be really helpful for us if we can’t put the ball up there and keep the ball off the ground. That’s our big focus going into this first tournament.”

The Lady Plainsmen will have only six matches at home this season. Their non-conference matches are on the road, and they will also play in three tournaments away from home. The first home volleyball game is a conference match versus Cheyenne Central on Sept. 20.