For The Tribune

BROWNSTOWN

Ella Brown said one of the reasons she attended the Brownstown Braves volleyball camp this past week was to improve her overall skills.

“When I played in club I was a libero,” Brown said. “I get to play more, and I guess I like playing a lot.”

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She said he has confidence in her passing and her ability to get the ball to the setter, and her favorite thing is serving.

Jennifer Shade, head volleyball coach at Brownstown Central, said 40 incoming fifth- and sixth-grade girls attended the camp.

“We still do the fundamentals, especially with the fifth grade because the first time we have actual organized volleyball is fifth grade at the elementary school,” Shade said. “Those kids have just finished fourth grade so they haven’t actually played on an organized team at school yet.

“Those we have to take a little slower than the sixth grade. We brush up on skills, we work on bad habits, we push them a little bit further and work them more in hitting approaches because they’re getting old enough to hit the ball over handed versus just bumping it over.”

Emily Singleton, who is entering sixth grade, said this is the fourth year she has attended the Braves volleyball camp

“I like hitting,” she said. “Hitting is my favorite thing. I just try to get on top of the ball and hit it hard. I’m not a good caller, but I enjoy defense.”

Singleton, who also plays basketball and softball said, “I did club ball this past winter and that was probably my favorite.”

Shade said the coaching staff put more things in later in the week.

“On Thursday we started working on rotations on the court and where you have to be and doing things on the court,” she said “On Friday we played, and had games and made it fun for them.”

Shade also said toward the end of the week the sixth graders played a game and ran a 4-2 offense, which is the basic offense of the school teams.

Maddy Hackman, who will enter fifth grade in the fall, attended her first volleyball camp

“My sister used to play volleyball and I wanted to try it out. I really like it,” Hackman said.

This coming week the camp for the seventh- and eighth-graders will held

“We’ll do the same with them,” Shade said. “We’ll brush up on some skills, run some of the drills. We like to do some of the drills that we do with the high school so by the time they get there they already know the drills and can run the drills pretty easy.

“We do modified versions of what we do at the high school with the younger kids.”