WHITEHALL — Whitehall will be hunting for offense this fall after graduating its two top hitters from last year’s third-place conference finisher in Arianna Black and Kayla Mulder. However, coach Ted Edsall, as ever, is less concerned with that than with being a good passing team.
“It’s always passing,” Edsall said. “If we can pass it OK, I think we’ll play good enough defense and have just enough attacking to get by. We’ll have to find some other ways to win.”
The Vikings will try some different things in order to get their best six players on the floor at once, including playing a two-setter formation, which they haven’t done “in a while,” Edsall said. Senior Sidney Shepherd, of course, will be one of those setters, and the other is sophomore Annaleigh “Lou” Mulder, Kayla’s sister. She brings a wealth of club experience at the position and her aptitude for it will enable the Vikes to deploy the multitalented Shepherd in different ways.
“She’s one of the top six players in our program, so we need to find a place to put her,” Edsall said. “(Sidney) is all in, and she’s going to hit a little bit. We need it. We lost a lot of offense. That gives us three left-handers in the rotation, which is kind of interesting. We’re going to set the ball to the right side a lot, and teams don’t like that.”
Shepherd will be far from alone in providing offense, of course. Fellow fourth-year starter Bella Fogus should take on a bigger offensive role this year at outside hitter, and Edsall has also been impressed with sophomore Aaliyah Jamison, saying she’s grown by leaps and bounds as a player from last fall on the JV team.
“She’d never played (before that),” Edsall said. “Through open gyms, it was night and day. Our AD said she’d found her coordination during the winter. She’s a good soccer player. She came to open gyms and it was like a different kid.”
Whitehall also brings back senior Brianna Bentz and sophomore Delaney Kramer, each of whom should play a big role. Kramer provides six-plus feet of height and Bentz isn’t far behind, which makes for an imposing obstacle.
The Vikings will get a lot of matches in early to find their rhythm, playing in three tournaments in a four-day stretch. They’ll open with a home tournament next Wednesday, followed by a tri at Allendale the next day and the Western Michigan Christian invitational the next Saturday.
“We need it. We need to get going,” Edsall said. “We’re not going to scrimmage before we play, which is OK. We just have a lot of work to do. I think we have enough experience that, at that first home meet, there’s some teams we can hang with.”
In the league, the Vikings will battle with several teams for top spots. Edsall said Montague’s wealth of experience may give the Wildcats an early edge. Whitehall hopes to be there at the end when it matters most in districts.
“We have enough attacking,” Edsall said. “We just need to serve receive and pass that first ball adequately and we’ll be pretty good.”
