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Players show growth at Englefeld camp

It is not too often that rural volleyball players in the Englefeld area get a chance to showcase their skills to members of the provincial high performance team. That’s exactly what volleyball players got on Aug.
Englefeld

It is not too often that rural volleyball players in the Englefeld area get a chance to showcase their skills to members of the provincial high performance team.

That’s exactly what volleyball players got on Aug. 22-23 as Englefeld played host to a volleyball clinic.

The two-day clinic was run by Sask Volleyball’s High Performance coach Patrick Winand and featured 15 volleyball players from grades 9-12.

The clinic was an introductory course into the technical aspects of volleyball, said Winand, with each skill broken down separately.

Over the course of the two days, players learned various skills including serving, setting, passing, blocking, and defense.

“All different aspects of the sport,” said Winand.

“We went over techniques and how to properly execute each skill and then on the second day we had a classroom session where we learned more about the tactics of the sport and talked a little bit about the mental side of the game.”

Bringing the camp to Englefeld was important, says Winand because it is not very often that rural areas are destinations for camps like this one.

“The rural areas of our province get overlooked for the skills they might have or the potential that they might have. It might be coaching, it might be opportunity, it might be just awareness, but I don’t think that they get the same opportunity to develop their skills as maybe the larger urban city areas do.”

Winand says growing up in Englefeld, he noticed a large gap in volleyball services and said he felt despite a considerable amount of talent in rural areas, it is not tapped into enough.

“I wanted to see what we had out in that area right now.”

Of course, the camp can also serve as a defacto recruiting chip for Winand, he admits, encouragig the players to attend provincial tryouts.

“There was definitely some athletes that we saw on the girls and the guys end where we would suggest there’s open tryouts for Team Saskatchewan regardless, but we would really hope to see them at them in January.”

With two days of skill building available, Winand says the players took full advantage of both days, saying he noticed a big difference in their play between when they first stepped on the court, and when the camp concluded.

“Their ball control from after the second session compared to how it was when they walked into the gym was night and day and I think that they noticed that too. They noticed a huge improvement in just how they could hold the ball and carry it through a rally.”

Looking ahead, Winand was real pleased with how the camp went, and said he is going to look into returning again in 2019.