By Jan Brito ’23
At Derby High School there is a new volleyball club for girls with approximately 14 participants. This club was started this year by student Brianna Kling ‘25 along with Lynnette Martinez ‘25. Practices regularly take place at the Derby Middle School gym.
Derby High School has never had a volleyball club or team. Kling has played volleyball for a while now and was surprised to find out Derby High School didn’t have volleyball as a sport. She worked with Athletic Director Ted Cosgriff and Martinez to start a girls’ volleyball club. The club is being coached by middle school coach, Joshua Dydyn, who had experience teaching most of the girls in the club at the middle school, which is one of the reasons he decided to lead the club.
Dydyn also led the club to give the girls an alternative sport: “They have really taken interest in the sport… they wanted an alternative and this seemed like the perfect fit for them.” Kling told the Raider Press, “The whole purpose of starting the club is to eventually have a girl’s varsity team. Our goal is to have the varsity team next year.” Dydyn sees this becoming something more than just a club as well: “I see it becoming a varsity sport”.
The club is a positive environment. All the girls in the club get along and joke around while doing what they have to do to improve and succeed. The girls start off practice with basic stretching and then warm up by running laps around the gym. The girls work together to help set up by grabbing the volleyball net and the poles from the closet. The girls remained focused and professional while having fun and joking around. The girls have had 5 scrimmages total for the season, they had 1 win and 3 losses.
This club has big goals for the future and is great to join for beginners and moderate players.
The Raider Press 