The 2022 Warrenton Lady Warrior volleyball squad is looking to maintain their spot atop the GAC North conference this season and push for a district title.
Warrenton has won the last two GAC North conference titles. They won the title in 2018, 2020 and 2021 under sixth-year coach Randy Kindschuh. Prior to 2018, the school’s last conference title was 1978.
“Our expectation is to put 2022 up there,” Kindschuh said. “That’s our number one goal.”
The Lady Warriors finished last season 24-10 and advanced to the district championship game. Warrenton is looking to move past the district title game this season, after losing in the district title game the past two seasons.
In order to achieve these goals, Warrenton will need to overcome the loss of several key contributors the last couple seasons. Five starters on last year’s team were seniors.
“I had six seniors last year and five were starters,” Kindschuh said. “So we lost 80% of our offense, 80% of our ace servers, our four best passers all graduated. So we’ve got some holes to fill.”
With the loss of several senior contributors and leaders, Kindschuh is looking for returning players to provide leadership for the Lady Warriors. Returning setter Emily Likes has been a good leader for the Lady Warriors since the spring open gyms and summer. Kindschuh also believes Zoe Klaus has shown she can maybe be a leader for Warrenton. Kindschuh is looking to Likes and Klaus to help the rest of the Lady Warriors reach their level.
Kindschuh confirmed Warrenton is changing their offensive formation this season. Last season, they ran a 6-2 offense. Due to the skillsets of the team this season, the Lady Warriors switched to a 5-1 offense. Kindschuh stressed the Lady Warriors run a fast offense and do not currently have two setters ready to run Warrenton’s fast paced offense.
“When we get good passing, we run quicks in the middle and we run slides and we call it a crossbuck where the middle goes to the outside and the outside comes into the middle,” Kindschuh said. “But you can only do those things if you pass well. And right now, my second setter is not quite there as far as setting that fast of an offense.”
The Lady Warriors were specifically focusing on passing and serving in practices prior to the start of the season. They were also working on defensive positioning.
“Pass and serve needs to keep going up a few notches and then we need to work on our defense as far as positioning,” Kindschuh said.
The Lady Warriors participated in camps in Farmington and western Nebraska this summer. The Lady Warriors competed against quality competition at the camp in western Nebraska. Kindschuh believes this helped prepare Warrenton for the start of the season.
“We did pretty well there this year,” Kindschuh said. “A lot of teams that we played out there are probably better than what will be on our schedule. And we played with most of those teams. So I think we know that we can play up to a certain level.”
Kindschuh cited the benefits of having two assistant coaches who played for Kindschuh early in his Warrenton tenure. Kayla Nelson and Allison Tonioli are assistant coaches for Warrenton.
“It’s nice having that type of assistant on board because they know what my expectations are,” Kindschuh said. “They know the drills. They know what standards that we have. So that’ll be nice.”
Warrenton will begin the regular season Friday at home against Ft. Zumwalt East. The game is slated to begin at 5:15 p.m.