Girls beach volleyball was introduced to Collier County Public Schools during the spring of 2024. Under the instruction of NHS indoor volleyball coach Dexter Rogers, the girls volleyball team is expected to be successful. Rogers has a great amount of experience in the field of volleyball, contributing to his choice of continuing coaching for NHS outside of the typical fall season.
“I have coached volleyball for 24 years,” Rogers said. “I have coached high school, college and professional beach volleyball, so it was an easy decision.”
Although the fundamentals of beach volleyball and indoor volleyball are similar, the sports do have some contrasting elements. Despite this, the players are able to overcome and benefit from these new aspects.
“Beach volleyball has many technical elements that differ from indoor,” junior Dana Olson said. Learning and adapting to the sand has been challenging, but it has immensely improved my indoor playing, which I look forward to utilizing during the fall season.”
More specifically, many of the sport’s differences pertain to the game’s guidelines. It is necessary to fully understand these regulations to achieve a victorious outcome in a beach volleyball game.
“The rules are very different. You can’t receive service with an open hand on the beach. You can’t use an open hand to push the ball to certain spots on the court,” Rogers said. “You have to use a roll shot or precision passing or deception to win a few easy points.”
The skills that are fostered through girls beach volleyball can aid in strengthening a volleyball player’s overall aptitude in the sport. Likewise, the collaboration needed to play will be exemplified in the first game of the season, March 19, and can be applied to the fall indoor volleyball season.
“For beach, it’s only two people on a team, so each person really contributes,” junior Ocean Unland said. “I feel like that’s a really important skill in indoor too because each person contributes to the whole team.”
