Panther Volleyball to host Lady Wildcats Tuesday
by John Earp
The Jal High School Panther Girls’ Volleyball Team is coming together well heading into the fall season. Head Coach Nichole Segovia says, “Basically all of the girls that I have now have been showing up for summer ball. So basically, they all got along real well, they played together well. These past few days with two-a-days it’s been nothing but positive vibes there in the gym. It’s been really awesome.”
Segovia says that besides those who graduated last year, she has most of her team back from last season. There are 22 players who have come out for the junior varsity and varsity volleyball teams this year, and 23 girls who have come out to play for junior high. Vivian Nieto is the assistant coach for the high school teams. Sasha Navarette is the coach for the junior high volleyball team, with Laura Parsons as assistant coach. Segovia says that the number of girls playing volleyball for Jal this year is about the same amount as in previous years.
The district the girls will be playing in this season consists of Hagerman, Texico, Loving, Eunice and Jal, and will no doubt be quite competitive this year.
The Panther Girls, both varsity and junior varsity, will be playing Lovington next Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. in their opening match of the season. Segovia said that her team has competed against Lovington already this summer, adding that the Lovington team has provided a very good level of competition for the Panther Girls’ teams.
The teams have been practicing two-a-days recently, with a new point system, called a cauldron, which has been developed to give objective measurements of each girls’ athletic skills and abilities in their respective positions. Segovia says she has used this system for several years in order to determine who plays varsity or junior varsity. She says, “We want to make sure that we’re not mossing any athlete, because sometimes you see one girl and they’re just “on” that day, and then we end up missing out on the other girls that are also contributing and so we don’t see their skills. So, with this cauldron system that we’re using, it keeps up with their points and their performance and so it’s a really huge piece of our tools that we use to get our varsity and JV teams.”
Segovia says she won’t know who will be on varsity or junior varsity until Thursday the 15th, after the evaluations are complete. “Numbers work, data works, data does not lie, and so they are proven principles that we use. It’s called Gold Medal Squared, and I’ve been using it for three or four years. They’re proven principles, so that’s what I’ve been using and building the program on. You can tell the difference in the confidence of these girls, too. Just like us doing those coaching techniques. They really like the competition, let me tell you. They really like the competition in practice.”
