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RUTLEDGE – While there may be only two seniors on this year’s Grainger Lady Grizzly volleyball team, head coach Jessica Maxey is expecting big things from them.

Maddie Hurst and Catelin Newman anchor the Lady Grizzlies in 2023. “You always want to see leadership out of your seniors,” Maxey said. “Maddie is a four-year starter and she will be playing setter and right-side hitter. She was an All-State player and we expect that high caliber play out of her again. Catelin has kind of flown under the radar as far as her playing goes. The time she has played has been important and she started to get playing time as a freshman due to circumstances during that Covid year and has been a fixture on the varsity ever since. Catelin has a huge wing span, is very aggressive and intimidating on the net and both her and Maddie are both lefties which is something not every team has.”

The Lady Grizzlies will lean heavily on four freshmen and five sophomores this season and Maxey said developing a talented, but extremely young, team will be a point of emphasis. “We always try to be optimistic going into a new season. We are replacing four seniors from last year, three of which had been three to four-year starters so there are some big holes to fill with only two seniors coming back. We have a lot of girls who don’t have a ton of experience on varsity who will see significant playing time this year. We are a solid team but we lack experience that we have had the last couple of years.”

“Addison Whaley played for us last year as a freshman and is a strong defensive body on the net and a really good hitter,” Maxey said. “Overall, she is a great ball player. She will be one who is on the court a lot. Jenna Maxey will our libero and will get significant time in that spot. She has worked hard this summer and certainly proved herself in that role.”

Several other first or second-year players highlight the 2023 roster. “There are several other freshmen and sophomores who could see time depending on how things shake out. Harlie Seibers is a junior who will be our setter this season after being a setter on the JV team. She will see more time than she has in the past. KatiAnn Dossett is a starter who we have had in the past. Adrianna Buchanan will be an outside hitter for us and played a little bit of everything on the JV team,” Maxey said.

Realignment by the TSSAA means the league will look different in some ways, and similar in other ways, Maxey said. “We have a new district this year that is a combination of the last couple years of the districts. We have Gibbs and Union County back from a few years ago, Volunteer is new to the district and we kept Cherokee and Claiborne. We lost the Greene County schools but they are still in the region. We aren’t directly competing with Greeneville now in the district as Gibbs is in that place now. They seem to find their way to the region, sub-state and state tournaments quite often. We have our work cut out for us in the district.”