Bamberg sophomore Chelsey Emery moves the ball along Saturday night during an opening-day passing drill at a high school volleyball camp in Vilseck, Germany. The camp runs through Tuesday. (Rusty Bryan/Stars and Stripes)
Bamberg sophomore Chelsey Emery moves the ball along Saturday night during an opening-day passing drill at a high school volleyball camp in Vilseck, Germany. The camp runs through Tuesday. (Rusty Bryan/Stars and Stripes)
Vilseck junior Mariah Morris readies herself for a hitting drill Saturday night during the opening session of a four-day high school volleyball camp at Vilseck High School. (Rusty Bryan/Stars and Stripes)
VILSECK, Germany – Seventy-four high school volleyball players were on hand Saturday night as the final summer sports camp of the season, Vilseck’s ACE Volleyball Camp, opened a four-day run.
“The focus of the camp is ball control,” said Vilseck head coach and camp director Brian Swenty. “We’re going to teach them good techniques and give them lots of repetition.”
The camp’s staff members, who include instructors from as far away as Puerto Rico, began with a skills evaluation and vertical-leap testing.
The tests helped group the players according to ability and experience. Swenty said participants ranged from all-stars such as Allison Gunsch of Heidelberg, Anna Muzzy of Vilseck and LeAmber Thomas of Wiesbaden to “those who had never seen a ball before.”
“Grouping the players,” Swenty explained, “is the best way to help them advance their skill levels.”
The high-school-age camp was the second phase of the AAU-sanctioned ACE camp Swenty organized for the first time here this summer. Fifteen players showed up for the elementary- and middle school camps, which began last Thursday.
“With three adult instructors and eight high school players,” Swenty said, “the younger players had nearly one-on-one instruction.”
Bamberg sophomore-to-be Chelsey Emery, 15, also benefited from a pre-camp before arriving here.
“We had a little camp in Bamberg,” she said. “Most of us [18 in total] then came here.”
And even though the camp was just minutes into its first session, Emery said she’d already picked up a valuable tip or two.
“I’ve learned you have to be ready at all times,” she said. “You have to anticipate where the ball’s going and be ready to play it.”
Swenty said the campers would take part in three daily sessions – two long ones during the daytime and a “less intense” one in the evening that concentrates on technique.
To handle the demands of days that lengthy, the campers did some carbo loading Sunday morning at a pancake breakfast prepared by volunteers who arrived at the high school at 5:30 a.m.
The Vilseck camp is an addition to the calendar to June’s Aviano volleyball camp, attended this year by some 130 players.
“It’s different in a good way,” said Vilseck junior-to-be Mariah Morris, who traveled to Aviano earlier this summer, about the new camp on the block. “(In Aviano) there were a lot more girls – there wasn’t as much individual instruction.”
Although DODDS-Europe offers no organized varsity volleyball to boys attending schools north of the Alps, the Vilseck camp drew one male participant, 16-year-old Vilseck junior-to-be Renanzo Williams. Williams said he’s sharpening his skills in preparation for playing with a German club team in the area.
Asked what it was like to be the only boy among 73 girls, Williams brightened quickly.
“It’s really cool,” he said as he took the floor for a return-of-service drill.
