High school volleyball: Cougars geared up for another strong season

Third-year Kenton Ridge volleyball coach Angie Arthur has reservations about some aspects of her team. She’d like to see more accuracy from her hitters and better blocking. But one thing Arthur doesn’t have to worry about is effort.

Take senior Dakota White, for example. The first-team All-Central Buckeye Conference pick last season plays libero and loves her role, which requires her to hit the deck often to return opponents’ shots.

“I really like being on the ground. I know a lot of people wouldn’t say that, but it’s not bad at all,” said White, who wears only a thin pair of pads on her knees. “One of my favorite things about libero is getting awesome digs and being able to slide on the floor like a penguin. It’s just really fun.”

That all-out mentality is why the Cougars have been perhaps the premier program in the area the last four years, reaching the Division II district finals every season and advancing to the regional finals in 2014 under Arthur’s predecessor, longtime coach Lori Saunders.

They’ve gone a combined 87-17 in that span with three CBC division titles.

They return six players from last year’s team and have a towering front line with the ability to go 6-foot-2, 6-0 and 5-9 across the front.

The tallest of the bunch is junior Mikala Morris. She was first-team all-league last year, though basketball is her primary sport. She’s a Division-I recruit and has numerous scholarship offers.

“Luckily, she likes volleyball, too, so we get her,” Arthur said. “She doesn’t play club volleyball, which hurts her a little. She just hasn’t had the reps. But she’s looking pretty sweet for not playing club.”

Senior hitter Peyton Fleming, the coach’s daughter, and junior setter Lexee Trainer earned second-team all-conference honors last year.

Ashley Foster, a 6-foot senior, also will play the front row. Juniors Mallory Armentrout and Britney Remley are hitters, too.

“If we have a weakness, it’s our hitting and consistency,” Arthur said. “If our hitters can figure it out and get the ball in the square more often, we’re going to be able to compete.”

Remley had an eventful preseason. She went on a Caribbean cruise with her mother and developed appendicitis. She had emergency surgery at a hospital on the Turks and Caicos Islands.

She’s fine now and is slowly working her way back. But Arthur called the ordeal “a little scary.”

After being the coach at Tecumseh and Emmanuel Christian, Arthur changed schools again to coach her daughter in middle school and then followed her to Kenton Ridge.

Saunders left the KR program in good shape when she retired, and Arthur has built on that.

“I think we can keep it up,” she said. “We’ve gone to some tournaments this summer and did well. We did well in our summer league around here.

“We went to the Friendship Cup, which is a three-day tournament in Mason. That was 20 teams. We were a top-five team after three days. We played against good Columbus teams. We didn’t win it, but we were right in it.”

The goal is to advance past the district and get another shot at their first state trip since 1993.

“I think we’re going to have a very strong defensive team,” White said. “We’ve been playing well together for the third year now. We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. If one of us is feeling down, we know how to pick each other up.

“That’s one of my favorite things about our team because we’re all so close. We know how to work together.”

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