Sports
Royal Oak Volleyball Hoping To Net District Title
Consistency will be the key for the Ravens when it heads to Southfield this week for districts.
The Royal Oak High School varsity volleyball team is hoping to serve up a district title next week when it heads to Southfield for the start of the playoffs.
On Monday, the Ravens play Detroit Henry Ford at 7 p.m. in the first round at Southfield. A win would put them in the second round against Berkley on Wednesday. The Bears have a first round bye.
“It’s a district we should win,” Royal Oak head coach Heidi Leidy said. “Our biggest competition should be Berkley. We played them twice this year already; we lost to them twice, but they are a team we could beat. We just have to play well.”
Find out what's happening in Royal Oakwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The Bears are in the Oakland Activities Association Blue division with the Ravens. Berkley swept Royal Oak in three sets back on Oct. 4, but it was a very close match. Two of the three sets were decided by less than five points (25-20, 25-12, 26-24).
For the Ravens to capture a district title, they will need to be more consistent within matches. The girls have had problems starting slow throughout the year.
Find out what's happening in Royal Oakwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
“We need to play full games from beginning to end,” Leidy said. “There have been a lot of games where we started out really slow and kind of picked it up towards the end. By then, we lost a lot of our drive.”
It hurt Royal Oak in league play. In the Blue, the girls finished the season in the middle of the pack.
“I thought we would do much better in leagues,” Leidy said. “We had some tough, close matches.”
Even though Leidy has five seniors and seven juniors on the team, she only had four returning players from last season. Leidy called it a “young” group as far as experience goes.
Senior Paige Smith is the team’s top player. She is an outside hitter that sets the tone on offense and defense for the Ravens. A junior that has made an impact is Kayla Linstruth. She is also an outside hitter who is a very good defensive player and has a solid serve receive.
Since Royal Oak doesn’t have a lot of tall athletes, it relies on all-around players like Smith and Linstruth.
“We don’t have a lot of height and a whole lot of offense on our side,” Leidy said. “We don’t have any six-foot hitters that can really help us at the net. I have a lot of girls that are consistent and keep the girls in bounds. A lot of the times we have to rely on our defense to keep us in the game.”
