Young Lakewood Ranch volleyball team quadruples win total at Cougar Encounter

Perri Hankins just happened to be looking at Lakewood Ranch’s team photo from last year during the days leading up to the Cougar Encounter in Sarasota. The Mustangs head coach had the thought to compare last year’s roster to this year’s inexperienced version.

Seven players were gone. There had only been one senior.

“Just the world of volleyball,” Hankins said. “I have no idea.”

The Mustangs, who have been perhaps the most consistent program in Manatee County since Hankins took over, are rebuilding for the first time under seventh-year head coach. Lakewood Ranch hasn’t finished worse than .500 under Hankins, and it has reached regionals three times and the state semifinals once. This year, however, the Mustangs (4-12, 1-3 Class 8A-District 11) entered Saturday with one win.

The Cougar Encounter, a 16-team tournament split between Braden River High School and Cardinal Mooney High School’s Patterson Pavilion, provided the backdrop for Lakewood Ranch’s best weekend of the season. The Mustangs finished third in the silver bracket, translating to a seventh-place finish. A 25-22, 25-17 win against rival Braden River capped the day.

“We’re just really focused on trying to be good teammates, be a bonded team, and win points and sets,” Hankins said. “And if they pull out the matches then we’re happy about that.”

Lakewood Ranch’s rebuild began out of necessity during the spring. Rising senior Kahlee York, a first-team All-Area selection last fall and Louisiana State commit for beach volleyball, tore her anterior cruciate ligament while playing with her Wave Alliance club team. The Mustangs’ expected centerpiece was gone.

By the start of the season, Lakewood Ranch was down to nine players — four freshmen, two sophomores and two juniors. Now Hankins will look out on the court on occasion, and realize there are four freshmen and two sophomores sharing one side of the net. Only junior middle blocker Ciarra Scarborough, sophomore middle blocker Addie Tholl and sophomore setter Jordan Schmucker contributed in 2015.

And those two remain the clear veteran anchors for the Mustangs. To sweep the Pirates in the final game of the day in Sarasota — all matches were best of three sets — Scarborough and Tholl combined for seven blocks to stifle Braden River.

In a district with Manatee, Sarasota and Venice, Hankins isn’t worrying about the present. Instead, she is back to where she was when she arrived at Lakewood Ranch. The Mustangs are a team she can mold across the years to come.

“We had some good teams and had some great leadership, and we graduated a lot of kids,” Hankins said. “And then we’ve been kind of scrambling since then to find that group that’s going to mesh together and some solid leaders that’s going to lead that group, and that’s why we’re so excited about having this young group that can work together, develop the leadership, bond together. We have made immense steps already.”

Results

This story was originally published September 24, 2016 at 11:44 PM with the headline "Young Lakewood Ranch volleyball team quadruples win total at Cougar Encounter."