Lady Plainsmen Volleyball Wants to Take the Next Step

The Laramie Lady Plainsmen volleyball team has high aspirations as they make their 2016 season debut this weekend.

Second year head coach Rebecca Stewart has a major part of their nucleus returning from a team that qualified for state after a slow start. Laramie went 15-20 overall last season. They finished tied for third in the 4A East Conference at 5-5; followed that with a fourth place effort at the regional tournament; and then went 1-2 at state, but their lone victory was an upset of West top seed Kelly Walsh in five sets.

Stewart says higher expectations? Absolutely.

“We’re a little more mature this year... We’ve gone through the experience of going to state; getting a big win; learning how we need to be able to rebound from that and have consistent play. I think we’re going to be a lot mentally stronger this year, and I’m hoping that reflects in good things.”

There are five starters and eight letterwinners back. It’s still a younger squad with one senior out of 44 players in the program. Though, there’s five juniors on the varsity that all played a year ago.

One those is junior setter Shyann Bastian. She compared last year’s preseason with this one.

“We’ve definitely stepped up since last year. Our chemistry is a lot better. She’s (Coach Stewart) more focused on the being more together and getting out of stuff quicker. It makes it a lot easier for the team when we get in game situations.”

Junior middle Maia Edwards echoed some of the same sentiments, “We all know what to expect more often than we did last year.”

Stewart continues her emphasis on passing and defense, as she states those are important at this level, but has added they’re getting more aggressive with their serving and hoping to run a quicker, fast-tempo offense.

She says, “I think they have high expectations of themselves too, which is cool to see. They know the system now, and I think they want to strive for a really high point, so I think they’re going to put in the work to get there.”

The Lady Plainsmen debut Friday and Saturday in the Cheyenne Invite. They will play Rawlins and Rock Springs at 2 and 5 p.m., respectively Friday. Day two will pit LHS against Kelly Walsh and Natrona County at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., respectively. All the matches are at Cheyenne East High School.

The rest of the schedule features tournaments in Gillette and Casper. Most of their home matches are in the first month of the season. The home finale is against East on Oct. 4. The Lady Plainsmen will be road warriors the final month of the season with conference matches and the post-season. The regional tournament is in Gillette, Oct. 28 and 29. State is in Casper at the Events Center Nov. 3 through Nov. 5.