Coach Kirk Dillabaugh leads the Glebe Collegiate senior girls volleyball team in an early morning practice.
Bump, set and spike: words Glebe volleyball players live by and the recipe for winning. As the senior girls volleyball team head into the playoffs, these three simple steps keeps them jumping high at the net and working as a team.
“We always work really well together because there is a common goal to reach,” says Alex Bateman, a senior middle, who has played on the team for four years.
The Gryphons are starting playoffs with a 9-1 record, and they face high expectations.
Glebe has won the city championships, five years running, creating a dynasty in every sense of the word. Despite feeling good about this year’s playoffs, Bateman says, the pressure is nerve wracking.
“Once we’ve climbed to the top, we want to stay there as long as we can,” says Kirk Dillabaugh, the girl’s volleyball head coach. Dillabaugh has coached the team for only four years, but says he still feels like a new coach and he always has something to learn. “Whether it’s from a game or from one of my girls, this is an ongoing job.”
As new athletes join every year, Dillabaugh credits the team’s continuing success to the work Glebe’s feeder schools put into their volleyball programs. Glashan Public School and Hopewell Avenue Public School have always made an effort to introduce volleyball in earlier grades, Dillabaugh says.
“Exposing them to as much competitive volleyball is our focus,” says Ron Sloan, the volleyball coordinator at Glashan Public School. Hours spent in the gym working on fundamentals are the base for Glashan’s success, says Sloan.
This year they have a total of nine girls teams, and their top team remains unbeaten by any rival in Ottawa. Sloan says that most girls come out of Glashan looking for the top program, so Glebe is the next step.
“Success breeds success,” says Paul Britton, Athletic Director at Glebe. After the success of both the girls’ and the boys’ teams, which took home OFSAA gold this year, Britton says that trying to maintain a balance between competition, participation and fair play is the goal of athletics at Glebe. The pressure of a dynasty, says Britton, should not bother these girls. “Once you get a culture of winning, the pressure fades away.”
Britton credits the coaching staff, and the feeder system, to how far the volleyball program has gone. “Even though Kurt’s first passion is track and field, the enthusiasm he brings to volleyball keeps the girls involved.”
Playoffs mean overtime for players, coaches and fans, whether it’s working to improve their skills, battling through their weaknesses, or challenging new rivals. But the Gryphons dynasty is rooted in the three simple rules: bump, set, and spike.