Calaveras Enterprise sports editor Guy Dossi spoke with Rich Juarez, the head coach of the Bret Harte High School volleyball team. Their conversation included his thoughts on his team through the first half of the Mother Lode League season, the status of his program as a whole and the play of senior Kenzie Segale.

GD: The first half of the season is over and your team finished 5-1, what are your thoughts on the way your team played in the first round of Mother Lode League play?

RJ: I feel that we were continuing to build until we hit the injury state.

GD: Let’s look at your entire program. You obviously play close attention the freshmen and junior varsity squad. Can you talk about their progress as the season goes along?

RJ: Our freshmen …show more content…
But Hutchens is one of the players that I can see make noticeable strides in a positive direction as the year goes on.

RJ: She’ll continue to grow as a player. She will continue to get mentally strong. She’s still sophomoric in a lot of her approaches to things, which a lot of girls are. It’s just the way that it is. They are just so young compared to the age of another varsity player.

GD: What’s the biggest difference between the JV and varsity levels when it comes to the action on the …show more content…
What to do and when to do it and then being able to perform at the level of a varsity player. It didn’t have anything to do with her physical ability. She’s had that. But her knowing what to do at the right time is still growing. She’s not quite there yet. That can come at different times for different people. Sometimes it’s during the junior year, other times it’s the last five games of their senior year.

GD: Finding a replacement for Jada Barnes at libero was one of the big positions you had to fill coming into this season. You put Kenzie Segale in that spot and she’s really doing a great job.

RJ: If you would have asked me a year ago if Kenzie would have been a libero on the varsity volleyball team, I would have laughed at you. She did not have the grit that it took to be a varsity libero last year. She had the skill, but not the grit. She has changed tremendously between last year and this year. If you look at her last year, she was a roll position person who would fill from time to time. She’s grown into the person who has grit and wants to play. And as I said earlier, I never know when that switch is going to flip for each kid. She did it her varsity year. But the way she played her junior year, I would have said no way. But she flipped a switch to the level of a varsity