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Accelerated Development

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BY ERIC HORCHY

THE SUNCOAST NEWS

Published: October 11, 2008

EAST LAKE - In sports, freshman year typically is a period of growth and development.

Be it high school or college, it's a time when most athletes learn from upperclassmen, cheer on the sidelines and realize what it is going to take to play at that next level.

While it is certainly not surprising to see first-year players rotating in and out of varsity lineups, four doing it - and starting - is cause for notice.

There's a reason why nicknames like monikers similar to the University of Michigan's renowned basketball "Fab Five" are coined when a single team marches out so many fresh faces. It's an unexpected rarity to see such youth perform at or above the level of game-tested veterans.

The East Lake volleyball team entered the 2008 season without five seniors from the year prior, but is has now experiencing a freshmen phenomenon of its own: Four players who seemingly have bypassed the natural pecking order of succession all together.
Middle hitters Brianna McComeskey and Brittnay Estes, outside hitter Jackie Wegner and setter Rachel Reed are all ninth-graders who have gelled with a core of upperclassmen to help give the Eagles the look of a legitimate playoff contender once again.

As of Wednesday night, the Eagles were 8-3 overall and eyeing the No.1 district seeding with a 4-0 record in Class 5A, District 9 play.

All four have been playing together now for two years in club ball. Though success has already arrived quickly for girls playing older competition for the first time, they are still on the vasrsity learning curve.

"It was intimidating at first because they're all so good, but then they really opened up and started helping us out," McComeskey said of the initial transition.

"They all have a lot of experience, and we're just freshmen coming in," Reed said. "It's so much different than club."

Seniors Natalie Mahy and Karly Gilchrist agree that while there was a feeling of trepidation entering 2008 because five players were missing from last year's 18-7 playoff squad, they've seen enough out of their new teammates to be confident in this year's hopes of a district title.

"We were coming into this season thinking that it might get kind of bad, because we didn't have much left," said senior outside hitter Mahy. "But then we got a plethora of about 15 freshmen on J.V. and varsity, combined. So we were excited to have them come up."

"Everyone says we're a young team," Gilchrist said of how the Eagles are being viewed by others. "But we're not young - we're a new team. We've improved so much."

The faster-paced, harder-hitting style of game to which older players like Gilchrist and Mahy have been conditioned are elements, Estes said. So to, however, are a match's intangibles, such as intensity and atmosphere, she said.

They got their first heavy dose of such intensity just four games into the season during East Lake's Sept. 9 match at rival Palm Harbor University. While the Eagles eventually lost the rollercoaster five-gamer to the Hurricanes, 3-2, it was an early, loud first run of what to prepare for down the road.

"It was our first big high school game, the Blue Crue was there and I wasn't sure how I was going to take it at first," Wegner said, mentioning the raucous, ever-present cheer-and-jeer section that is the East Lake student body. "But then I started to feed off the crowd and once the game started going it was so much fun."

The diversity of skills each adds to the team is a big reason the four freshmen have made it onto the court together, according to their coach Terry Small.

McComeskey and Estes have the ability to become one of the best blocking and big-swinging middle tandems in the area; Reed's newfound setting role has allowed Small to open up his offense more and give Gilchrist - the team's regular setter - the freedom to hit away; and Wegner has proved to be one of the Eagles' most dependable, error-free players on the outside.

"Rachel adds for us a lot of diversity, Jackie gives us consistency, and Brianna and Brittnay just give us termination to get the ball down," Small said.

The 12 ninth-graders in the East Lake volleyball program are far and away the most he's had in his 12 years at the helm, Small said.

"I knew the potential was there," the coach said of his team's chances for immediate success. "I just didn't know when we could get there."

Taking the Palm Harbor match to five games, Small said, was "the point where I changed my expectations of where we're capable of being at."

In a nod to the team's upper-class players while also peering ahead toward future capabilities, Wegner summed up by encapsulating what her fellow freshmen starters believe as well.

"We have three other years, but we haven't been district champs since 2002," she said, mentioning the year East Lake was also state champion. "It would be great to win this year for the seniors."

"It will set higher expectations for the next three years, too, so it will be more intense to win it again."

Eric Horchy can be reached at 727-815-1071 or ehorchy@suncoastnews.com.

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