Amber Hall admitted she felt a little lost the last couple weeks of August. Ever since she was in the sixth grade, the Pleasant Valley volleyball coach always had a practice or match to get prepared for each day in the fall.
But when COVID-19 shut the Spartans down for two weeks before their season opener, all the program could do was sit and wait.
“There was this voice inside of me saying, ‘I want to get back, I’m eager to meet up with the team again,'” Hall said.
The last Iowa Class 5A team to open the season, sixth-ranked PV kicked off the 2020 campaign Sept. 9 with a 25-15, 25-17, 25-13 sweep over Muscatine at PV High School.
The hardest part?
“Watching other girls play,” setter Kora Ruff said, “but we remained ready the whole time. When we came back, we were going to be ready when we got our chance.”
“It was hard being at home, but at the same time it made us even hungrier to come back and be really driven to play,” outside hitter Arra Cottrell said.
Spurred by Ruff and a stable of hitters, PV overwhelmed a Muscatine squad which had won six of its eight first matches of the season under first-year head coach Kara Russell.
The Spartans never trailed in the first two sets and used an 11-point service run from Ruff in the third set to gain control and finish the sweep.
“As the night progressed, I thought the girls got a lot more comfortable and did a really good job of flowing and playing together,” Ruff said.
Ruff distributed a match-high 36 assists. She also was 21 of 21 from the service line with five aces, had 10 digs and finished with five kills.
Ruff recorded another 31 assists on Sept. 10 to help lead the Spartans past Davenport Central. Only two matches into her junior year, Ruff now owns the career mark for assists for the Spartans with 1,706. She broke the mark of Payton Strawser, who played for PV a decade ago and logged 1,692 assists.
PV showcased plenty of offensive options.
Cottrell and Chloe Cline each recorded 11 kills while Emily Wood posted seven. Alexa Frankel and Halle Vice each had six as PV finished with a 48-15 advantage in kills.
The Spartans did have nine service errors.
“We had moments of greatness and then moments where we showed we need to keep working on certain areas,” Hall said.
The Spartans returned to practice last Wednesday after the quarantine period.
“It was kind of riding a bike you haven’t ridden in a long time,” Hall said. “The first day was a little shaky, the second day we started hitting our stride and then the third day it was like, ‘Yeah, we’re back.'”
Projected to be among the top contenders for the MAC crown, PV is coming off a state semifinal appearance from last year.
Ruff, Wood and Cline are the players returning from that team who saw significant court time. Cottrell has taken on an expanded role, and the Spartans have several newcomers like libero Livia Thomsen, Riley Morgan, Frankel and Vice.
“We lost a lot of great seniors and a lot of leadership last year,” Hall said, “but this team saw that, learned from it and grew in the offseason. They are the next girls in ready to contribute.”
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