Target acquired: Spartans aiming to finish season strong

Vickie Nichols wasn’t thrilled with her team’s performance Sept. 10, despite it resulting in a three-set win over Vestavia Hills.

The Mountain Brook High School volleyball team knocked off the Rebels 25-14, 25-19, 25-15, but Nichols saw too many errors and far too many missed serves for her liking.

“The biggest thing we’ve been working on is consistency,” the head coach said the day after the victory.

Nichols wants the Spartans to eliminate those dips in performance and remain steady throughout a match. The week prior, the Spartans beat Homewood in four sets. They won the first, second and fourth sets convincingly, but dropped the third.

“We play really well set one, set two we don’t, set three we do,” Nichols said of the team’s tendency throughout the season. “We’re learning how to repeat a performance set to set to set.”

Mountain Brook’s recent practices have been geared toward training the team to hone in on small portions of matches. The Spartans will split into teams during practice and play minimatches to five points, emphasizing how critical each point is and preventing the opposition from running off multiple points consecutively.

“Every team struggles with mistakes, but the consistency of not making so many in a row, we’ve been working on cutting those errors out,” Nichols said.

That Nichols can focus on such minor details with a team that is still winning at a high level speaks to the lofty expectations bestowed upon the Mountain Brook program. The Spartans won the Class 7A state championship three straight years from 2014-16, and they believe the pieces are there to achieve something similar this fall.

The Spartans proved that Sept. 12, taking the previous day’s practice and applying it to a critical Area 6 match against Spain Park. Mountain Brook successfully defended its home court, sweeping the Jags 25-16, 25-15, 25-21 to improve to 3-0 in area play.

Nichols believes the Spartans possess a couple of characteristics that will aid them in the long run: an even-keeled nature and resiliency. “Many of the teams we play, play really emotional,” Nichols said. “If we can stop that, a lot of time, their play drops.”

That consistency Mountain Brook is striving for will eliminate those long runs that allow teams to build up momentum. But on the flip side, the Spartans have the ability to not let those runs affect them when they do happen.

“I think we’ve been pretty resilient,” Nichols said. “We’re able to bounce back and not stay stuck in the moment and lose two or three points.”

Nichols added: “Emotion helps us, but it doesn’t break us when it’s not happening. Which is huge, it keeps us steady.”

Nichols also lauded her coaching staff as being fun to work with. Mattie Newson and Maggie Schmidt assist with the varsity team, while Madi Mahaffey and Jacqueline Cotter coach the junior varsity team.

“We get along really well, very supportive of each other, trustworthy, and that means a lot. We work well together. We have different things that we each bring to the table,” Nichols said.

Like any team, the Spartans have still faced some adversity, such as losing the season-opening match to McGill-Toolen in straight sets, dropping two matches to the same team from Tennessee in Huntsville’s Ironman Tournament and getting beat 15-4 in a decisive third set by Thompson.

But they’ve battled back from each of those losses with a renewed energy, since they have an end goal in sight.

“They’ve worked really hard, and they’re laser-focused like I’ve not seen them before,” Nichols said. “That’s going to take them where they want to end up. If you want to be a champion, you’ve got to be laser-focused every time you step on the court and take care of business.”

The month of October will show whether the in-season improvements pay off for the Spartans. They conclude area play with matches against Vestavia Hills, Spain Park and Hewitt-Trussville. They also will take part in the Blalock Tournament at Homewood and play the likes of Hoover and Jasper, non-area opponents that are two of the best teams in the state.

The area and super regional tournaments are set for the week of Oct. 21, with the state tournament the following week at the Birmingham CrossPlex, should the Spartans reach that point.

“We’ve got our eye on a target and we’re trying to get to it,” Nichols said.