Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
First-year head coach Linden Kunick takes over the Woodmore volleyball program with a positive mindset and a lot of faith in the capability of her athletes.
“I am very excited to see the development of the girls,” Kunick said. “I am definitely a coach who enjoys winning. I definitely don't like to lose, but it's not everything to me. I am more interested in seeing their individual development and seeing us go from point A to point B and seeing all those different strides that we've taken.
“I like to focus a little bit more on the positives rather than the negatives, but I definitely expect us to make an impact on this league. For the past couple of years, it's been a little bit middle of the pack in terms of volleyball for Woodmore, but I would like us to kind of make some schools be like, ‘Oh, okay, you know, Woodmore has it. They're here.’”
Kunick also becomes the program’s fourth head coach in four seasons.
“They've made me more confident in my abilities because they've been through this,” she said. “They've had four coaches in four years, and so they're used to that adaptability. And the older girls are really stepping into that position of being a good older sibling, sort of.”
Kunick, a Perrysburg High School graduate who spent last year as Woodmore’s strength coach, has a background that includes club volleyball coaching and serving as a freshman and JV coach at Upper Arlington. She recently graduated from Capital University, where she played volleyball.
“When this position became available, I jumped on it,” she said. “I knew I would have the volleyball capabilities to do it. Even though I’ve never head-coached a program before, I knew I would find my way around the administrative side as long as I kept my eyes on the actual volleyball coaching.”
The Wildcats, who finished 6-17 overall (5-10 SBC) last year, will have four returners in juniors Lacey Lipstraw, Payton Whitcum, Olivia Schreck and Karli Heins. They’ll help to overcome the graduation losses of Emma Watson, Maddie Jagielski, Emily Lang, Abbey Holub and Ariana Florio, who was named Honorable Mention All-SBC.
“They're really blending into it seamlessly with communication throughout the team,” Kunick said. “They’re advocating for the team and making decisions that I'm not in the position to make just because I am so new to the program. They're helping me find out things that I did not know about this league.”
In addition to the graduation losses, Woodmore will not return senior Liv Scavio, who is playing soccer, and the setter duo of Samantha Bush and Vida Guillen, who were both underclassmen setters last season.
Despite those losses, Kunick is excited to see how some of last season’s JV players contribute to the team. Sophomore Elena Reif should handle setting duties, and sophomore Zion Scherger will see time at outside hitter. On top of that, rookie Reagan Bradstock could make an impact as a freshman.
“I want us to be the strongest ball control team in our conference…you win games by being able to keep that ball alive,” Kunick said. “We can work on offense later; we are a very defensive-heavy team.”
Another focus for Kunick is teaching her team the core awareness or core knowledge of different techniques to playing defense.
“We have a young team, so not all of them exactly know, or have been taught those things,” she said. “Ball control is definitely up on our list, as well as just general court awareness and being able to anticipate rather than react.”
With her strength coaching background, Kunick also said that upper body strength and injury prevention are two more key focuses.
“A lot of girls will come to me and tell me that their knee is hurting, or ankles are hurting, or they've rolled their ankle in the past, or some girls have had different types of surgeries,” Kunick said. “The tiny little things that we can do in the weight room to make ourselves as bulletproof as possible (is important). You're always going to be putting yourself in awkward situations 99 percent of the time in volleyball. You're not always going to land on two feet. You're not always going to make the right move when you're changing direction super fast or having to jump. We’re just making sure that we can survive doing the awkward things.”
Perhaps the most important thing for Woodmore this year is honoring Symini Moore, a sophomore defensive specialist on last year’s JV team who was killed in a Jan. 23 shooting.
With the season following the death of Symini Moore, Kunick recognizes there is a crucial piece of the school missing, and her athletes will be honoring Moore and playing for her.
“I did not know her personally, but I know a lot of the girls on the team were very much affected by losing their friend,” Kunick said. “We want to honor her and make sure the entire program, city and the school district know that we are honoring her and playing for her.”
