Photo by Sam Thiel The 2021 Red Rock Central volleyball team includes front row (L to R): Alyssa Bittner, Jenna Paplow, Emily Cowan, Maddie Evans, Maddie Geske, Reilly Hubin. Middle row (L to R): Hailey Amsden, Nora Hemmingsen, Lilly Stavnes, Carlee Sell, Mercedes Myers, Jada Radmaker, Jadyn Steen. Back row (L to R):  Emily DeCock, Josie Horning, Karli Arkell, Sondra Rindfleisch, Abby Helmer.

LAMBERTON — The Red Rock Central volleyball team has shown a lot of consistency thro ughout the last several seasons, which continued last year when RRC went 10-3 in the pandemic-shortened season. The Falcons will look to maintain that consistency with a strong group of returners under co-coaches Brittni Baune and Cierra Fast.

The Falcons will have a strong veteran presence, led by Karli Arkell, Lily Stavnes, Sondra Rindfleisch, Nora Hemmingsen and Josie Horning. Emily DeCock and Jadyn Steen will also look to make an impact on the floor.

Fast said an area of strength for their team will be their serving as well as utilizing their height at the front of the net.

“We’ve always been strong at serving and we’re bringing back a lot of strong servers so that should be a strong area,” Fast said. “And then our hitting and blocking with our strong middles for us.”

Baune added they hope to improve on their defense in the back row, especially after losing Bianca Weis to graduation.

“I think back row is going to be the area we need the most improvement on,” Baune said. “We lost Bianca, our former libero, so to fill her presence it’ll be tough but I think we have the players to do it.”

Baune said during the first couple of weeks of practice, their main focus has been on building a cohesiveness as a group.

“I think just getting this team used to playing with each other,” Baune said. “We had quite a few summer league practices but we were missing a few girls, so we just need to build that team chemistry and get used to playing with each other.”

As for expectations, Fast said they expect their veterans to lead the way and contend for the conference championship and make a deep postseason run.

“I expect it to be a really good season,” Fast said. “We’re returning a lot of people from last year and we’ve got a lot of seniority under our belt; Karli being such a strong middle with a dominant presence, I expect us to be contenders for the conference and hopefully go very far in the section.”

RRC will start its season on Thursday on the road against Springfield at 7:15 p.m. Going into the season, Fast said they’re looking forward to hopefully having a normal season and doing all of the things they missed out on last year.

“Hopefully a normal season if COVID can stay out of it,” Fast said. “We miss the team meals, being able to ride the buses together and having fans, so hopefully we can have as normal of a season as possible.”