The West Prairie High School volleyball team will have a new head coach entering the 2025 season.
And while it may be a “new coach” in some respects, it will be a familiar face as long-time assistant Drew Snyder takes the reins of the Cyclones program.
“I would say that it’s certainly a change in responsibility,” he said. “It’s much more competitive. You’re looking to win games.”
“In junior high and JV you’re focusing a lot on development,” Snyder added. “(At the varsity level) you’re focusing more on winning.”
“It’s not pressure, but it’s a little bit added responsibility, making sure you’re putting out a good team (on the floor) every day,” said Snyder. “But honestly, not much has changed.”
Being a part of the program at both the junior high and high school levels, Snyder is already familiar with most of the players.
“I’ve been with these girls since middle school, some of them since sixth grade,” he said. “They know me pretty well and they know the expectations.”
“We’re pretty comfortable with each other by the time they get to high school,” Snyder added.
The Cyclones finished 10-20 last season, so where did Snyder’s focus first fall?
“Honestly, a big goal for me has been to make the gym a place where it’s a fun, hard-working environment for the girls where they want to be there,” he said.
Snyder stated that he met with this year’s incoming seniors at the end of school year and earlier in the summer.
“We looked at our three core values as a program. Hustle and hard work, aspire for one and positive communication,” he said. “I asked them ‘Where do you want to focus time and energy this summer?’” The answer was positive communication. That includes working on talking the game a little bit better on the court and getting together off the court doing team-building activities.
“A lot of it is getting to know each other,” said Snyder. “We have freshmen and sophomores playing with juniors and seniors that have never played together before.”
“Learning about each other, trusting one another, getting to know each other, that’s a big goal we’ve had this summer so that we’re ready to go in August,” he said.
Feeding into that trust is the work to improve on defense.
“We’ve been working specifically on our defense,” said Snyder. “I went back and (watched) a lot of game film from last year. A lot of our problems were on the defensive side of the floor.”
Two goals for the defense are improved blocking and the ability to dig more balls.
“That’s been a big objective this summer,” Snyder said. “It’s more of a mentality, like ‘I don’t want the ball to drop (hit the floor).’” Joining Snyder as a new assistant will be former West Prairie standout Gwen Kalhke, who played libero at Central College in Pella, Iowa.
“Sometimes, hearing something in a different way from a different person, even if it’s the same message as before, if you hear in a different way from somebody new, it clicks,” he said.
Snyder has been pleased with the players’ effort.
“They’re really getting after it and working really hard to fix some of that stuff; to try to really be ready to be better defensively,” he said.
“I think that translates better to the offense if we have more balls off the floor, giving our offense more opportunities,” he added. “That’s been a big focus for me moving forward this year.”
