VolleysoccerDad

I agree with you. By the third foul, even just run of the mill, the cards need to start coming. Greeneville is an advanced team capable of playing both sides of that coin. It doesn't surprise me that they rolled through state.

Greeneville is a quality team that deserves to be where they are. It is incumbent upon the referee to reward the right type of play and punish the wrong type of play. You can't blame the player for flopping if they continue to get rewarded for it. i understand that a Dobyns Bennett attacker was red-carded for simulation in a Sectional final. Was he required to sit the first State match? Very few high school refs have the confidence or guts to make that call. Too often, any contact or simulation of contact results in a foul being called. Greeneville is very good at using this to their advantage. Credit to them!

Be cautious of the Greeneville attack. Simulation (ie. Flopping) is an integral and practiced part of their approach. Hopefully, the refs will be experienced and focused enough to keep the match "above board".

If Notre Dame beat Signal Mountain, they should have a pretty good chance to make it to state. There could be two representatives from the same district. Last year, Red Bank made it to state with a losing record from Region 3. How does Region 3 look this year? Depth is an issue for most AA schools so luck will probably play a part.

CAK, Catholic and Sullivan South are three of the best eight teams in AA. However, under the rules, only two will punch a ticket to the state tournament. It will all depend on who is playing the best during the regional and sectional contests. Signal Mountain and Page will be there is well.

Whoever HardAngle may be, he has used this forum to engage in a smear campaign against KCHS generally and the volleyball program, athletic department, athletic director and school administration specifically. It looks like outside parties have noticed. I hope he decides to move on with life.

HardAngle, this seems personal. I apologize if I offended you in some way.

Catholic has had two great coaches. Coach Jones coached for nine years and retired and Coach Garland coached for five and resigned. Your right, players do leave for all kinds of reasons including playing time, and coaches leave for all kinds of reasons as well. Catholic is a top-notch school with a top-notch athletic department to be envied so I'm sure they'll find another quality coach. Thanks for your feedback.

K2r, I'll respond to your question, but let me state that I do not have any input or inside knowledge into the decision. Having said that, Mike has always shown a deep commitment to KCHS and the volleyball program so it would not surprise me if he were involved in some capacity. I think that many commenters on this website fail to appreciate the investment Coach Jones made to assure that his successor was successful. Perhaps that's because he never toots his own horn, giving others credit for success and taking the blame when things don't work out. Coach Jones spent two or three (I forget) years grooming Coach Garland and left at a time when the team was moving down to Class AA from Class AAA and the roster was loaded with experienced talent. The 2013 senior class had only three players but all three played varsity as freshman including a MB and OH who were All-State. The 2014 senior class had 9 very experienced players of which 2 did not play their senior year. Once Coach Jones passed the reins to Coach Garland, he was very careful never to steal the spotlight. However, he still supported the team behind the scenes and could be seen sitting in the stands during matches taking notes. I am sure that he is as disappointed as anyone that things didn't work out with Coach Garland. I am sure that Catholic will be competitive next year. However, the new coach, whoever that may be, will not have the same benefits as Coach Garland did his first year. There are only five players returning from the State Tournament varsity roster. The JV had a good year so some of them should contribute. The strength of the roster will somewhat depend on how many of the three experienced upperclassman who left the team under Coach Garland decide to return (not blaming Coach Garland for this but just stating the facts). I also don't know how reclassification will effect volleyball next year and how that could impact a team's chances at making the post-season. In any case, patience will be in order. I just wanted to provide some perspective so that others will not jump to conclusions if next years' team doesn't have the same success as this years' team.

K2r, Mike is an excellent mentor and coach but there will need to be patience as the squad from state has five returning players and only one returning senior. The squad lost seven talented seniors including four who saw varsity playing time as freshman.

I didn't answer the question because a 2007 college football game has nothing to do with the talent level of Catholic's 2014 volleyball team. Catholic competed in Tennessee Class AA and finished 3rd in the state. Within their class, I have asserted that Catholic was among the six most talented teams in the state class AA. The only team from AA that anyone has cited as having had more talent than Catholic is CAK. I agree. Catholic was 1-5 in matches against CAK this season. I also agree that front line play was not the team's strength, but passing was the best in the state this year tied with CAK and serving was the best in AA. Catholic beat plenty of teams because of more talented passers and servers. Once Catholic made it past Sectionals, it was one of six teams to have the talent to make it to the finals with CAK being the most talented. The most talented team not to make the tournament was Sullivan South. Many seem intent of pushing a narrative to criticize certain coaches, creating hypotheticals to do so and denigrating Catholic's talent level in the process. I am stating, without a doubt, that relative to their classification, Catholic's talent was among the best in the state. Irrelevant comparisons to football games or teams from othe classifications do not change the fact.

Name the teams in AA that had more talent?

They had a talent level that put them among the top six most talented teams in AA. Unfortunately, two of the other six were CAK and Sullivan South. Maybe you didn't watch the state tournament or maybe you confuse physical stature with talent. Do you even know which teams were in the district? Back to my first point, you are making a lot of assumptions.

Your prior post said Coach Garland had "almost no talent." You were wrong. Now you are wrong again.

Philly, If you'll review my comment, it was positive in regards to Coach Garland. However, there have been several comments in this thread which denigrate the abilities of the players, all of whom have spent years honing their skill and gave tremendous effort in reaching many of their accomplishments this past season. Coach Garland, while providing the players with coaching, did not make a single serve, dig, block or kill. Let's give credit where it is due.

Knoxville Catholic has high standards and expectations of its head coaches. Those standards include not only winning, but supporting the feeder schools, keeping the program financially viable, and doing it all in a way that is positive and respectful to all involved. While Coach Garland made substantial contributions to the program in the two years that he was the head coach and the two years that he was an assistant coach to Coach Jones, some comments appear to undermine the contributions of the players and the condition of the program inherited from Coach Jones. If you are an outsider, please consider the assumptions you're making before jumping to conclusions.

I would dispute the notion that private schools have better facilities than publics. Outside of the MBA's, Baylor's and Webb's of the world, many private schools don't have as nice of facilities as public schools. CAK and Knox Catholic have very modest facilities, as an example. Additionally, they spend less per student than public schools do. Private schools that compete in the public school classifications do so against public schools two or three times their size in some cases, so I don't know how they could be considered as beating up against smaller schools. CAK and Knox Catholic have decided to compete with the public schools because the alternative is to send 25 or more athletic times to Nashville and Chattanooga on a constant basis. There just aren't enough private schools East of Chattanooga to create a decent sized district. There is no unfair advantage for them. On the contrary, there is a built-in disadvantage as was intended by the TSSAA. I think that the reason that public schools don't perform better in A/AA is because soccer is predominently a suburban sport. There just isn't much interest in the more rural and inner-city parts of the state which is where the majority of A/AA is drawn. That's why Williamson County schools perform well and West Knoxville schools perform well, both public and private. I'll bet that the privates get it handed to them in softball in A/AA.

ORCAT, Your unrealistic expectations for Oak Ridge are understandable, but your anti-Karns, anti-AC, anti-Catholic, anti-Farragut, anti-K2, and now anti-CAK venom is really over the top. In the spirit of polite discourse for a sport of young girls, do you think you might tone it down a bit so the young ladies might have a better example of how grown women should behave? CAK is competing very well in the AA high school classification with a roster full of 13, 14 and 15 year old girls. If they continue their progress, they may very well compete for a state championship in the near future. If not, I know that they will develop positive values like teamwork, committment, and good sportsmanship that contribute to the rest of their lives. I hope that, you too, are striving to teach those around you, in a way thet benefits their lives.

Your right Hargis about the Knoxville middle schools. K2ruth can probably comment about this, but I think the University Women's Athletic Department does know and probably just doesn't have much control over the Knox County school board and administration. Title IX has had a positive impact on girls' sports overall, but the school administration in Knoxville seem inclined to punish both boys and girls sports at the middle school level. Most sports are "club" only and development is dependent on having solid clubs in town. Volleyball, as a club sport is more expensive than other sports and perhaps this is why it has lagged behind the other sports from a club perspective. There seems to be a growing critical mass of interest in volleyball here and perhaps this will help manage the cost along with some competition between clubs. Not to pitch club, in general or any particular club, but it appears that K2 has substantially increased participation at the middle school age groups with numerous successful teams last year at the 11, 12 and 13 year old age groups. This should help.

Those are interesting facts. Although, I don't know why you combine Middle and West Tennessee to compare to East Tennessee. If you split the state into three, as is typical, East Tennessee has 26 of 72 while Middle Tennessee has 37 and West Tennessee has 9. I would say that Middle Tennessee excels, East Tennessee holds its own and West Tennessee lags behind. What is notable, however, is the lack of Knoxville area representation for which I see only two teams, Anderson County and South Doyle. I haven't checked, but I think that you would find that if you looked at sports like boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball and football, there would be an embarassing abundance of representation from the Knoxville area. Volleyball has just caught on in the area and I expect the results to improve in the near future.

I have followed volleyball around Knoxville for five or six years now and I can confirm that the quality of play at the middle school level has improved significantly. Every middle school team has enough quality players to get the ball into system nearly every play and it actually looks like what a volleyball match is suppose to look like. The Farragut varsity middle school team looks like a high school team and could, in fact, beat many non-volleyball high schools in the area. We are starting to see these changes have an impact at the high school level. If you read the article, there are numerous freshman at CAK, Catholic and Karns with significant roles on their high school teams. That wouldn't happen often in more mature volleyball communities. Whether we like it or not, the days of players being able to make a high school roster, varsity or junior varsity, without significant experience and coaching is likely at an end. K2 has had a role in accelerating the process and so has CBFO. The lack of support by the Knox County School Administration has hurt somewhat. There is also some luck involved in competing against other parts of the state, but I think we will see more competitive teams from the Knoxville area in 2 to 3 years. Karns has a chance this year and we'll see what they do with it.

I like one of Oak Ridge's middles and their setter, but if they don't improve their passing, it won't really matter. They won't have a chance against Karns and AC and they'll probably lose to Halls who is well coached, passes well and makes you beat them. If Hardin Valley is coached to win, OR may lose to them as well. They could very well be looking at competing against Powell for being the best of the bottom of the pack in District 3. I would be quite surprised if Catholic is able to make it to Regionals. I understand that their line-up makes the AC lineup look like grizzled seasoned veterans. There is more parity in District 4 than District 3 with at least five teams better than the 3rd best team in District 3, IMO. Just making it may be quite a coaching feat for Catholic.

ORcat, Didn't Oak Ridge sponsor a tournament last weekend? How did the Wildcats do?