When Deann Newton took over as coach of the Sunlake High School volleyball team, the Seahawks had never had much success with the program. So if you wanted to see them play, you could sit pretty much anywhere you wanted.
“I think we maybe had five kids in the stands,” Newton said of her first games coaching. “And some of them might have been siblings.”
Now in her second year, good seats are harder to find. She estimates between 50 and 75 students go to their games, and they even had a strong turnout for a recent road contest against Land O’ Lakes High School.
The sudden interest in girls volleyball at Sunlake isn’t a coincidence. Newton has turned around a program that spent its first seven seasons in what seemed like a continuous losing streak. Their best record during that span was a 6-18 season, with multiple years where they won just one or two games. They even had a winless season.
But things changed in 2013. Under Newton, the Seahawks went 16-10, winning more games in one season than in all previous years combined. But a 5-2 record in Class 5A-District 8 wasn’t good enough for the postseason, so Sunlake had to be satisfied with a great turnaround and a bright future.
This year the team picked up where it left off, marching out to a 14-4 record so far, including a perfect 6-0 district mark. And while having four losses is no reason to be ashamed, it should be noted that all of those defeats came in tournament play, which Newton scheduled so they could get experience playing a variety of teams. The team is 11-0 outside of their tournaments.
The difference in the Seahawks before Newton came aboard and now comes down to how they approach the game from a mental standpoint.
“The attitude was like, ‘We’ll kind of try to win,’” she said of the team she inherited. “You have to go in with the (proper) mindset. It’s a very mental game.”
Now the Seahawks expect to win and focus on playing up to their capabilities.
But there were more than mental changes. The team started improving their conditioning and began working out together back in May to prepare for the upcoming season. It was a new schedule for the team, but the additional work was necessary to show that they were serious about improving on last year’s record, and becoming a stronger, fitter and more dangerous squad.
It was clear from the beginning that Newton was bringing something different to the team, said Gianna Basulto, a junior who has been on the team for three seasons.
“Before it wasn’t as serious,” she said. “But when Coach Newton showed up, it was like game on. This is how we’re going to do it.
“She was very straight-forward, and I love that about her because that’s the type of coach that I and the whole team need.”
The earlier conditioning has not only made the team more effective in long rallies, Basulto explained, but also helped the team develop important chemistry before the season even began.
That chemistry will be important as the season progresses toward the last few games of the regular season. While Newton said the team is taking things one game at a time, they haven’t forgotten their goals. They want to make the playoffs for the first time in school history, and they want to keep winning when they get there.
In order to keep getting better, Newton sets different goals for the team when they play, in addition to simply winning the match. They’ve been working on blocking and defense, for example, because the coach considers them areas where improvement is needed and will be required as they face stronger competition.
A strong mental attitude also will be required, and there’s plenty of confidence that didn’t exist a couple of years ago. As a result, if the team continues to improve, the school’s first postseason appearance could become a reality.
“I think we can go to (the district tournament) and I think we can win,” Basulto said. “Our coach is really pushing us, and we’re pushing ourselves.”
Newton, while still focused on fixing areas of weakness and getting better as a team, shares that optimism.
“Our goal is to get out of district with the one or two seed, preferably the one seed,” she said, which would qualify Sunlake for a first-ever trip to the regional tournament. “I think when we get to that point, I think good things are going to happen.”
Published October 8, 2014
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