Hugs and embraces abounded Thursday night in the JCHS gymnasium. In one sense, it was the end of an era with the Volley Hounds claiming the sweep in a tri-match against Putnam County and Hampton, sending the team’s six seniors out with a win.
But the victory was also the bookend of a season of history, as the Lady Hounds’ final record of 18-16 set a record for the most single-season wins in program history.
“A lot of these girls were on JV last year. I only had three, maybe four, that were on varsity last year,” Lady Greyhounds head coach Leah Bodnarchuk said. “A lot of them had not played together as a team. They came into it, accepted the changes as some of them took on new positions, and they just rolled with it. I’m grateful for that.”
This year’s success marks a step ahead for the Volley Hounds. What’s more is that it was almost a bit more. Jones County’s region record was two games shy of being ranked in the region’s top six, which would have been good enough for a region tournament berth. Among the Lady Greyhounds’ close losses during the season were a three-point match loss to Locust Grove and falling by two points to ELCA. Both of those teams ended up advancing to the state tournament with ELCA winning the regular- season region title.
“I’ve been telling them throughout the year that we can improve. We just have to keep pushing. I think that’s reflected in the stats that we see,” Bodnarchuk said. “We have consistently risen above what we’ve done in other years. So, I’m really proud of them for that.”
That’s expected to feed even more into the offseason for a team that will look to go through an entire offseason, something it didn’t have the benefit of before this season as a new coaching staff took over in the early part of the summer.
“We’ll have a lot of offseason conditioning, of course,” Bodnarchuk said. “Several of our girls play club, so that’ll be very helpful.”
