By Rubin E. Grant
Kellye Bowen isn’t looking back.
A year after guiding Spain Park to its first state volleyball championship, Bowen has put it in her rearview mirror. The only thing that matters to the Jaguars’ head coach is the 2022 season.
“I always say it’s a new year and a new opportunity,” Bowen said. “I said that in 2021 after we had a successful season in 2020.”
The Jags finished as Class 7A runners-up to cross-town rival Hoover in 2020, then came back and won the title in 2021, sweeping the legendary McGill-Toolen Dirty Dozen in the finals.
But Bowen said that’s history.
“We have new people in new leadership roles,” Bowen said. “Everyone is trying to figure out their roles and we’re trying to figure out what rotations work best. We can’t just go on what we did in the past year. We have to establish what we’re doing this year and what we want as a group.
“It’s difficult for our girls to comprehend, to wrap their heads around it, but they’ve got to be motivated to see where they match up this season.”
The biggest adjustment the Jags will have to make on the court is how to play without dominant 6-foot-4 outside hitter Audrey Rothman, who Bowen described as a “once-in-a-lifetime player.” Rothman, the 2021 OTM Volleyball Player of the Year and the Alabama Gatorade Player of the Year, is now a freshman at Florida State.
All she did last season was record 709 kills, 247 digs, 71 blocks, 67 service aces and 35 assists, leading the Jags to a 47-4 record and earning American Volleyball Coaches Association First-Team All-American honors.
“It’s hard to replace a player like that who loves the game and is so passionate about it,” Bowen said. “She was the best player and best person on the team.
“With her gone, it should give the players on this team motivation to prove everyone wrong, the ones who are saying, ‘Without your best player, what are you going to do?’”
Future Stars Step Up
Rothman was one of five seniors who graduated, but the Jags have a good nucleus returning, including returning starters Brooklyn Allison, a libero, Lilly Johnson, a setter, Emily Breazeale, an outside hitter, and McKinney Shea, a middle hitter/right side hitter.
Allison, who has committed to East Tennessee State University, and Johnson were both 2021 All-OTM selections. Breazeale was the MVP in the 2022 AHSAA All-Star volleyball game in July, and the 6-1 Shea is a dominant presence on the Jags’ front row.
They are four of the eight seniors on the team. The others are defensive specialist Ashley Fowler, middle hitter Macie Thompson, defensive specialist-setter Haley Thompson, and outside hitter Nora Dawson.
Also returning are 6-0 freshman Megan Ingersoll, a middle hitter/outside hitter who started at times last season as an eighth-grader, and sophomore outside hitter Reagan Gilbert.
“We’ve got a mix of young players and older players,” Bowen said. “But sometimes we struggle with which ones are going to step up and provide leadership and which ones are going to take over when we need them to on the court.”
Spain Park will open the season Aug. 18 at home against McGill-Toolen and then play in the Juanita Boddie Invitational Aug. 19-20 at the Finley Center in Hoover.
The Jags will compete in Class 7A, Area 6 along with Oak Mountain, Chelsea and Hewitt-Trussville.
“This team has a new identity,” Bowen said. “We’re working on building team chemistry, on and off the floor, and deciding what our standard is. When that’s player driven, you will have a great team, but if it’s coach driven, you may win some but it will be more inconsistent. The players all have to be chasing the same goal.”
