Lyons not new to area, or game

New coach was standout with Calvert

Friday, July 18, 2008

Lyons played all four years of varsity as a defensive specialist and was the first volleyball player to make the All-SMAC team in that category. She spent three seasons under Tim Horsmon, now the volleyball coach at the University of Maryland, and finished her career with outgoing Calvert head coach Dave Redden, who stepped down after nine years to spend more time with his family, at the helm.

Lyons also helped lead the Cavaliers to the SMAC, 3A South regional and 3A state championship her sophomore year.

Lyons attended High Point University on a volleyball scholarship and was the Panthers’ defensive specialist, which later became known as the libero, all four years. She made the All-Academic team all four seasons and named the school’s female athlete of the year her senior season.

Lyons graduated with a degree in special education in 2004 and is currently a special education teacher at Appeal Elementary School.

‘‘My experiences with high school and college and [coaching] junior varsity,” she said, ‘‘gave me a lot of experience to get me ready for this.”

Not surprisingly, Lyons said team defense is her specialty.

‘‘I know that I can teach offense and teach the girls how to do it, but defense I can more show them,” she said. ‘‘If we can keep getting it up [over the net], chances of the other team making errors and not getting back are a higher probability. We want to play defense and force our opponents to make the errors.”

She also believes that playing under two successful high school and two college coaches, as she went through a coaching change midway through her High Point career, enables her to select the best from each.

‘‘I think that playing underneath so many different, experienced coaches helped,” she said. ‘‘I can just pick and choose what I want to do from each of them and then I hope to instill that in the girls.”

Calvert finished 14-5 overall last season and lost three players — Jana Lowe, Megan Woodard and Connie Marcum — to graduation.

But Lyons is very optimistic about the Cavaliers, who could have six rising seniors in the fold.

‘‘For next year we’re going to have a strong team, we’re going to have a big team,” she said. ‘‘We’re going to have a very solid team. The majority of them played all four years for me and I think they can help out on varsity. I feel confident with the girls and I think they’ll do well this year, but this year we’re going to get our feet wet.”

‘‘What the team will need, and April definitely has it already, is the effort and the hard work they need to put into practice that will pay off when it comes to games,” Redden said. ‘‘She needs to know that it’s not just one match at a time but one practice at a time. You always have to go out there and put forth your best effort.”

No matter how Calvert fares this upcoming season, Lyons wants her team to play as hard as possible each and every serve.

‘‘I’m hoping to just get us at a competitive level,” she said. ‘‘If the whole team gives it everything they’ve got, I hope we can at least compete and walk off that court knowing we did everything we could and we gave it our best. We’re going to come up against people who are bigger, tougher than us, playing together longer than us, have more skill than us or have more experienced coaches.”

But Lyons also hopes to restore some of the game’s mystique.

‘‘To me, Calvert volleyball is tradition,” Lyons said. ‘‘My family, myself, my sister, my cousins [all played]. It’s tradition in that we have our banners up on the wall but I want to get back to that. I want us to get back to what Tim [once] referred to as building a dynasty. And I truly feel that way.”