FALL SPORTS PREVIEW: C.B. Aycock volleyball

By News-Argus Staff
Published in Sports on August 17, 2017 6:00 AM

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By JUSTIN HAYES

jhayes@newsargus.com

PIKEVILLE -- It's 9 a.m. on a Tuesday, and Charles B. Aycock volleyball coach Tangela Faulkner -- Coach T,  to members of her pass-and-block brood -- is trying to motivate her troupe for a warmup routine it knows cold.  

"Wait a second," Hannah Carter says. "I'm trying to find my happy place."

The group breaks up, including Faulkner, into the type of laughter that lasts only as long as it should. There's much work to be done, after all, and before the echo-rings of Carter's quip can lurch into a fit, they disappear altogether.

Then the lady Blues begin moving.

Really moving.  

At first, there is drill and rotation work, things like pass-and-run, extended passing and later, something called first-ball kill -- but they have to earn their way to that stage.

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Part two of the morning is now underway, and a couple of notions are apparent -- one, Aycock is ahead of the game as a unit, and two, it's Coach T who has penned the script.  

She is equal parts judge, jury and point-giver, and doesn't mind  at all holding her unit to the same performance scale that earned her All-American honors during her time at the University of Mount Olive.

No breaks.

No shortcuts.

No excuses.

"You know I'm not going to take it easy on you," Faulkner says with a laugh, right before firing a point-blank dart in the general area of Cassandra Lassiter, the outfit's all-everything and record-setting libero.

The bullet, part of a terror-ride drill called Texas Tough -- is the first of many, and in typical fashion, No. 7 doesn't say much in response to her coach -- she prefers, it seems, to speak in the plain-language tenor of floor burn.

Somewhere, Derek Jeter and Courtney Thompson must be proud.

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At long last, first-ball kill.

This is the crown-jewel intersection of the workout, a place where skill and timing and killer instinct must be on display at all times -- for there are consequences.

A set too low? Crunches.

A pass that errs to the net support? More of the same.

It's bump-set-spike with an edge, but quickly turns into flight school when Arlanda Faulkner emerges from the back row to smash a set from Carter.

The Taylor (Ind.) University commit ramps up quickly, climbs the vertical ladder in a blur and ends matters just the same -- but with a different sound than the rest.

It's a thud, yes, but puzzling and heavier, like a prop blast trying to outshine thunder. Then it hits you -- it's the soundtrack of a lost point, authored by a powder blue team in working in concert.