For The Tribune

Claire Marshall said the reason she returns to the Seymour Owls volleyball camp each summer is to improve her skills and spend some time with her friends.

Marshall, a setter, said she has been attending the volleyball camp since third grade.

“I think it’s really fun and I’m always looking for ways to improve,” she said. “We had a club team in fifth grade and I was the setter there.”

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The camp was divided into two groups: third through fifth grade and sixth to eighth grade.

Angie Lucas, head volleyball coach at Seymour High School, is the camp director.

“This is the first time we’ve done third, fourth and fifth together,” Lucas said. “We had eight kids that are here so they’re getting a lot of individual instruction. It’s been really good for those kids.

“We’re teaching them the platform on passing, very basic fundamental things that they have to know to be able to go to the next level, so very fundamental things on passing, setting, serving, and hitting.”

Lucas said there were 30 in the older group.

“We have a few more of those kids involved here in camp and they’re doing a really nice job,” she said. “Those girls are developing team-type concepts, like how to run a 5-1 offense, how to run a 6-2 offense, where to go defensively, adding in the attackers and the blockers. So it’s a little more complicated.”

One of the girls in the younger group was Claire Wichman. She said the reason she attended the camp for the second straight year is because volleyball is her favorite sport.

“There is a net and a ball and you can learn so many things,” she said. “It’s fun and it gives me energy to have fun and it gives everybody heart. Volleyball is fun and you can learn so many things from volleyball. I enjoy passing.”

Wichman, an incoming third grader, said she is close on being able to serve over the net, and said she will also attend cheerleading camp, and she enjoys going to Camp Lakeview.

Lucas said a lot of the campers in the older group are playing club volleyball, and a lot of the drills are 4-versus-4 and 6-versus-6.

“A lot of the kids play in the league we have Thursday nights,” she said. “It’s our junior SIGVL league. A lot kids from camp are involved in that league. They work on team stuff during camp and then they actually get to play a lot during the league.”

Lucas said the league normally plays on Thursdays, but this week the league played Tuesday.

Lucas, who returns to the head position for the first time since 2013, said part of the reason for the camp, “is for them to get to know me and the high school kids and my coaching staff. It’s all brand new to them. It’s been a good experience for them.

“I missed being in the gym with the kids. This has been really neat to come back. It’s been a very unique experience to be able to do that.”

Members of the high school coaching staff and SHS volleyball teams helped at the camp. Also helping was Chandler Clark, former SHS volleyball player who is playing at Morehead State University.

Clark is a setter at Morehead and worked with Marshall and the other setters. Marshall said she learned a lot this week about setting.

“I really like helping people get assists,” Marshall said. “That is just what I like doing, and it makes me feel really good when we get a kill and I was the one that set it up. I really like being involved, and just encouraging your teammates. I think that’s really important.”

She said she also attended the basketball camp, and is playing in the Thursday night volleyball league.