Feeding the future

Culpeper’s feared striker Megan Chamberlin wasn’t always a volleyball star.

She spent most of her time on the soccer field until, as a fifth-grader, she noticed a couple of her friends doing something strange at practice — playing volleyball with a soccer ball.

“Before I got involved in the sport I was like ‘it’s not volleyball. it’s soccer,’ ” Chamberlin said. “But after seeing them play, I got really interested and I haven’t stopped playing since.”

Today, the junior at CCHS is one of the best volleyball players in the area, and she attributes much of her success to starting her volleyball career at a young age.

“I think it’s really important to start early,” she said. “When you’re younger, you seem to adapt to things better. You want to start the sport as early as you can because it’s like when you’re learning to talk as a baby. You absorb things easier and you get better and better.”

Many youngsters in Culpeper don’t have the opportunity to learn about volleyball until they get to high school because there are no middle school programs, which is something Gene and Lynn Kritter are working to change.

“Middle school volleyball is not only a source of players, it’s an outlet for players,” Gene Kritter said. “So you have a place for players to play in school, and it’s just a cool sport. Volleyball is really the ultimate team sport.”

The Kritters began the volleyball program at St. Luke’s Lutheran School before moving on to coach the Fredericksburg Junior Volleyball Club, which is part of USA Volleyball’s Junior Olympic program.

Six Junior Olympic teams — composed of kids 13 and younger — took the court at St. Luke’s Saturday for a scrimmage tournament, where they not only learned how to play the game but also how to officiate and keep score.

“If you have volleyball in middle school then kids get to see what the sport is about,” Kritter said. “Programs feed off of each other. So when the kids get to high school they have the opportunity to go on to regional and even state play.”

Rappahannock County High School — which only boasts about 350 students — has been to regionals the last six or seven years and even made it to the state semi-finals last year thanks in large part to its middle-school program that prepares players for high school, according to Kritter.

Culpeper’s first-year varsity coach Chris White has seen firsthand the impact a middle-school program can have on the success of high school teams.

He coached middle school volleyball for four years in Roxboro, N.C., and many of the girls he coached went on to win back-to-back state titles at the high school level.

“I’ve noticed it’s 10 times harder to teach ninth-graders how to play volleyball than sixth- and seventh-graders,” White said. “The ninth-graders are already set in their ways. They’re less likely to actively listen to what you say, and they don’t seem to soak up what you’re teaching like the younger girls do.”

So what is it going to take to begin middle school volleyball programs in Culpeper?

It’s certainly going to take athletic directors that are willing to spend the money necessary to build teams and coaches that are willing to groom them, but Kritter says it’s even simpler than that.

“It’s going to take a commitment to women’s sports,” he said. “It will take a community commitment to helping our daughters develop into the people they can be, which is what sports are all about.”

Tourney results

1. Manassas Clash (U13)
2. Manassas Clash (U12)
3. Fredericksburg Junior Volleyball Club (U13)
4. Manassas Clash (U12)
5. Va. Beach Storm (U13)

Want to know more about Junior Olympic volleyball?

Visit usavolleyball.org