Bayside, Lee County win
Bayside from Daphne, Ala., won the Gold Division of the Choo Choo Classic with a 2-1 defeat (16-25, 25-22, 15-10) of Farragut in the championship match Saturday night at Ooltewah, and Lee County from Leesburg, Ga., topped Soddy-Daisy 2-1 (25-22, 20-25, 15-10) for the Silver Division title at Red Bank. Lee County got by Grace Academy and Soddy-Daisy topped Warren County in the semifinals.
After Boyd-Buchanan hired Nancy Culver as its volleyball coach, she gathered with her team for the first time last May.
“She brought us all together, introduced herself and told us her story,” senior defensive specialist Maddie Van Eaton said.
Then and there the Lady Buccaneers discovered that Culver was about to be coaching a high school team for the first time. And they found out she’s no ordinary rookie coach.
Culver, who played at Tennessee, came from coaching at the college level. After two years on staff at Iowa State and four at Houston, Culver was 28 when she acquired the head coaching job at South Florida.
Originally from southern Illinois – one of her coaching stops was at Illinois-Chicago, where she went to be closer to her father, who was ill at the time – Culver held recruiting-coordinator jobs at Bradley University and most recently Indiana, where she worked from June 2010 until January 2014.
She coached club volleyball last offseason, then took the job at Boyd-Buchanan, where she has two volleyball-playing stepdaughters in freshman Katie and seventh-grader Torri.
“It’s been good,” said Culver, whose team competed this weekend in the Choo Choo tournament held at Ooltewah and Red Bank and finished 0-4 with two losses going three sets. “I’ve got some girls that really work hard and want to play at the next level. They’re demanding of each other.”
Culver said teaching the game is what’s rewarding for her, no matter what the level. She said while she has simplified some things with her current group of Lady Bucs compared to the way she instructed college players, they have been quick to catch on to what they’re being taught.
“I think our goal is to play up to that level,” junior middle blocker and right-side hitter Erin Syring said. “We do a lot of drills and sometimes she’ll say, ‘I did this with my college girls.'”
Besides the team-oriented things, there also has been individual instruction.
“I’ve definitely seen a difference in my passing,” Syring said. “As middle blockers we don’t pass much, and when we do it’s not very good. I’ve worked hard, and with her help I’ve seen improvement in my game.”
Boyd-Buchanan’s schedule was put together before Culver took the job, but she likes that the Class A Lady Bucs were entered in a big tournament such as the Choo Choo. The larger schools they played this weekend could be similar to the types of teams they could encounter later, if their season takes the path the players hope it does.
“There’s a good tradition here and a lot to live up to,” said Culver, who is the third coach in the careers of Van Eaton and classmate Kensley Parker. “I talked to the seniors and asked them what legacy they want to leave behind. They want to go to state. They want people to know this isn’t a rebuilding year. They work hard like everybody else, and they want to be rewarded for it.”
After state-tournament trips in her first two years, Van Eaton said not getting out of the District 5 tournament last year was a big disappointment. The Lady Bucs are 2-0 thus far in their quest to be the top-seeded team for this year’s district tournament.
“We want to win the district,” Van Eaton said. “We’ve talked about it a little bit. We try to set small goals such as that first.”
Said Syring: “If we focus on things like winning the district, that will lead us toward reaching the bigger goal.
“I think we definitely have the potential to go to state. It’s definitely what all of us want to do.”
Contact Kelley Smiddie at ksmiddie@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6653. Follow him on Twitter @KelleySmiddie.