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The Charles Henderson High School volleyball team is gearing up for what they hope is a successful season in 2020.

Head coach Sonny Kirkpatrick enters year xx with the Trojans. The Trojans will enter the season with new, young leadership. So far during practice, Kirkpatrick has been pleased with what he has seen.

“I am really happy with how they have been doing,” Kirkpatrick said. “We have an inexperienced group, but they are in the gym getting better everyday. We have about three and a half weeks before we start playing, so we can keep getting better.”

The Trojans lost two players to graduation last season, and two more who are no longer on the team.

“We lost two very important seniors who did a great job for us and provided great leadership,” Kirkpatrick said. “It’s always a bitter-sweet time because you grow attached to the players. When they go on, it’s the next player up. We lost two seniors, but we lost four players off that team. We have some talented kids, we just don’t have a lot of experience in important positions.”

The players spent the better part of the summer at home and away from the school and their teammates. By the time everyone returned to practice, Kirkpatrick believes his players were relieved just to be out of the house.

“All throughout the summer in their workouts they bought in,” Kirkpatrick said. “Sitting at home and not being able to do anything gets old after a while. It was a good break and a good change for them to get in the gym and do something constructive.”

The varsity team has approximately 10 players on their roster, while the junior varsity squad has about 14. The Trojans have been able to easily social distance themselves during practices.

“With the way we are doing things, we are not within six feet of each other for more than 15 minutes,” Kirkpatrick said. “We keep a good area between them, but at the end of the day it’s still volleyball and they have to be close together and feel comfortable. We take temperatures everyday and we have plenty of hand sanitizer for them. I think they have gotten used to the whole COVID thing and how they need to go about their daily lives.”