CRESTVIEW — Baker School volleyball coach Tommiko Parks knows the Gators have some work to do in quest of their 12th straight district title and 22nd consecutive playoff appearance.
Baker participated in last week’s summer tournament at Crestview High School, allowing Parks to get her first real look at the team.
“When you graduate five seniors you are pretty much rebuilding on what you have,” she said. “We have one senior (Hartley Moate) and the rest of them are girls that just love to play the game of volleyball.
“She’s (Moate) the only senior we’ve got coming back so far. We might have some more coming back, but I have no idea (if thewill have more seniors).”
Moate, who was sidelined with a minor injury, didn’t play in Thursday’s tournament, giving Parks a chance to see all of her new players.
“The tournament just tells us what we need to work on,” Parks said. “When you come into the games, we know it’s a whole new team, but it tells us what we need to focus on and that’s why we play these types of games.
“This is the first time we’ve all been together in a team situation. We need to focus on everything right now — serving, receiving, hitting, every aspect of the game. We’ve just got to bring it all together.”
The Gators did play big schools Crestview and Fort Walton Beach close, losing to both teams in split sets.
“Anything we can do that can allow us to get some positive vibes is a good thing,” Parks said. “No matter who we are playing against, playing well is a positive thing for us.
“We have to be doing the things we know how to do and do them well.”
Baker will continue to prepare for the start of fall practice by spending time working on strength and conditioning.
“The game plan is to get in shape; to get faster, stronger and mentally tough,” Parks said. “One of the things we are going to do is work out in the weight room. That’s going to be huge because it’s a long season.
“We play a lot of games in a short amount of time so we just have to figure out how we can make it until the end of the year.”
Randy Dickson is the Crestview News Bulletin’s sports editor. Email him at randyd@crestviewbulletin.com, tweet him @BigRandle, or call 682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Baker volleyball team focused on getting faster, stronger, tougher