Bumping up to the national stage

The U18 girls’ volleyball team at U-Turn appears, at first glance, to be the typical gaggle of teenagers. They chatter during stretches; they joke about holding up practice for a late teammate; they josh their coach about getting out of the hard parts of practice. But beneath the banter are 12 athletes, who sacrifice themselves every day for a sport they love, and who are headed to competition at the national level for their efforts.

“Every one of them are overachievers,” head coach Don Gresham said. “You almost have to be. We played 13 weeks in a row in eight different states, and they’re required to keep their grades up. Just because you’re tired does not mean you don’t go to school the next day.”

By the end of the first hour of a recent work out, the 12 have fallen nearly silent. The girls surpassed glistening 45 minutes ago and their legs are burning from the three cycles of constant jumping exercises that work everything from their calves to their quads. However, when they’re offered the chance to trade the fourth set for a lap of running, none of the girls take Gresham up on it.
“It’s going to hurt either way,” one team member mutters.

“I get more out of jumping than running,” another adds.

“This is why we’re successful,” Gresham says with a grin. “We out-work everyone.”

After the fourth cycle of leaping, the girls head off to practice. For another hour to an hour and a half, it’s non-stop running, setting, diving and bumping, and it’s easy to see why they’ve been successful.
The U-Turn Sports Performance Academy Volleyball team is in just its first year in existence, yet it won the Old Dominion Region to earn a bid to the USA Volleyball Junior Olympic National Tournament, a coup in their sport. All of the seniors on the squad received volleyball scholarships, a few to some of the top ranked women’s programs in the country, and one of the juniors, who will return next year, will spend the other part of her summer in Mexico competing on the U.S. Junior National team.

“The NCAA National Champion is Penn State,” Gresham said. “One of our players turned down a scholarship to Penn State. She decided that she wanted to play at the University of Virginia because she wants to be closer to her family and have her family come watch her play in college. Another one of our players is going to UConn; one’s going to UNCW; that makes them pretty skilled. These players are being recruited by the top 20-25 colleges in the nation, and we expect that to continue.”

The team draws talent from the Richmond area to Fredricksburg and Virginia Beach. Some drive two hours nearly every day to attend practices, not to mention the constant travel during the season. Between the U-Turn team and their high school teams, volleyball is a heavy commitment for the girls.

“I just love it. It’s my life,” Mallory Woolridge said. She’s one of those expected to return next year and is also expected to get a decent amount of playing time with the U.S. Junior National team this summer.

Still as much of a lifestyle as the sport is for the athletes, the coaching staff remains realistic and aims for a balance in training.

“Our success is based on a couple different things. We start off with as good an athlete as we can find. We combine that with good technical teaching. We use the best physical teaching that we can find, and we prepare them psychologically and socially to deal with being an athlete,” Gresham said. “When you’re in a non-revenue producing sport, nobody’s going to look the other way because you don’t have great grades. Volleyball players to have great grades, they have to be involved in school functions, they have to be socially conscious, they have to be everything to everybody and still be a great athlete.”

When they’re on the court though, no one on the team is thinking about grades and socializing. Humble as they may be about their own abilities, as a team, the U-Turn girls are confident and hungry to prove themselves.

“My expectation, especially for nationals, is to win it,” Woolridge said. “We’re going to try to win it, just work hard and have fun and play as a team.”

The team hits the courts in Miami June 26 through July 5 for the U.S.A. Junior Olympic Girls’ Volleyball Championships.