Ronan resurgence
New coach, new attitude helps Maidens turn heads during 2010 volleyball season
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
3 of 3 free articles.
This was a season of change for the Ronan Maidens’ volleyball program. After winning just three conference games in the past five season, the Maidens shocked the Northwest A Conference by finishing 4-4 in league play this season before earning a third-place finish at the conference tournament.
Under the leadership of first-year head coach Naomi Mock, the Maidens started grabbing attention at the beginning of the year with several early-season wins.
“We were low man on the totem pole coming into the season. Nobody was expecting anything from us,” Mock said. “Other teams thought it would be the same old ‘time to play Ronan and get another win.’ With the first couple of wins, we kind of got the attention of the other coaches. We were turning their heads and making them take notice.”
The early season wins were quite the change for a Maiden program that had finished just 11-55 since 2006, including going 3-35 in conference play over that span.
After going through several coaching changes over the past few years, Mock thinks the girls were so used to change that it actually helped her put her stamp on the program.
“All of the changes they have been through coaching-wise lately really helped us out, I think,” she said. "We were able to make a lot of changes, and the girls just went with it instead of fighting it. The girls were really accepting of us as a new coaching staff. We didn’t hear anyone say that we needed to do this like last year or do that like last year. They really bought into what we were trying to teach them.”
The main thing Mock and her coaches said they were trying to teach the girls was to have fun.
“I didn’t really know the stats from the previous years coming into the job, which was helpful,” Mock said. “I didn’t have any preset goals other than I wanted the girls to enjoy playing the game. I came into it wanting them to love the game and have fun more than I wanted to have a winning season. I could have cared less if we had a winning season or not, I was more worried about them having fun and wanting to play.”
According to the players, it was that change in attitude that helped turn things around for the Maidens.
“There was a big difference this season. Girls actually wanted to go to practice. They wanted to be on the court,” senior Taylor Lynch said. “We worked very hard but we were having a lot of fun at the same time. We were always having fun and that was a big thing that was different this year. We were always joking with each other and laughing all of the time. That really helped keep things loose.”
Mock admits that just having fun was a key in the resurgence of the program this season.
“It was all about the attitude. Honest to goodness, that’s what turned things around for us,” she said. “It was really about a lot of positive attitudes. If we did hear anything negative, it was nipped in the bud.”
While the team was all about having fun on the court, there was also a newfound desire to focus on volleyball to get wins.
“We were willing to put things to the side for the good of the team,” Lynch said. “Outside things didn’t matter when we stepped onto the court. We just wanted to win. We really wanted to feel what that was like.”
It was a philosophy started and adhered to by coach Mock as well.
“One thing that I told the girls, and I stuck to this too, was that volleyball is completely separate from everything else,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what else is going on. When you step out on the court, it is all about volleyball. For me, that meant that there were no bills that needed to be paid, no housework that needed to be done, only volleyball.”
The new attitude paid off for the Maidens early in the season as they went 5-3 at the Whitefish Starter Tournament, but the winning was something that the team would need some getting used to.
“My first real awakening was at the first tournament of the season,” Mock said. “The girls kept asking why they had to spend the entire day at the tournament. I had to tell them that it was because they were winning and the winners had to wait around to play in the last games of the day. The attitude changed after that. They realized that volleyball could be fun.”
The new-look Maidens garnered even more notice the following week when they downed Columbia Falls for the program’s first conference win in two years.
“After that first conference win, we realized that this year could be different,” Lynch said. “I remember getting into that huddle after the win and thinking that we could really do this. I had a feeling that it was going to be an exciting season.”
While the wins were doing great things for the confidence of the team, they were also doing another important task: Grabbing the attention of the community.
“There were not a lot of people at our games in the beginning of the season,” senior Marissa McCrea said. “After we started winning, though, the fans started showing up. People were actually excited about coming out and watching us play.”
According to Lynch, having the stands full for the first time was a great feeling.
“It was great coming to school and getting positive feedback,” she said. “People were actually wanting to come to our games. It was great to have that support from our community. We didn’t really have that before.”
Mock said that the support that the team received from the community was a key to this season’s success.
“I think one of the main reasons we did so well this year was because the girls has people believing in them,” she said. “I had people walk up to me on the street, people I didn’t know, and tell me how proud they were of what we were doing.”
According to Mock and her players, it was that support that helped the team have their most successful season in years.
While this year may have been a great success for the Maidens, Mock says the challenge will be to keep the trend going in the future.
“Next year will be a totally different scenario,” she said. “But that is they way things are in high school sports. Next year’s team isn’t going to have as much height as this year’s team and we will have a lot of young players that will have to play key roles. We will have to tailor our game again to match the players that we have.”
While no one knows what next year will bring for the Maidens, Mock says the potential for success is limitless.
“We set the bar high now and we have something that we are going to want to live up to in the future,” she said. “It’s still an uphill battle for us, but we are nowhere near what we can be, yet.”
