News

Stars hope to start fresh by re-learning fundamentals with new coach

By Tyler Ohmann

08/21/2012

Last season the Bottineau Stars lost to Kenmare in the region final for the second straight year. They lost three all-region seniors and five seniors total. Their coach left too, which leaves them will only one thing left to do this year—start fresh.

“It’s kind of hard, we got rid of five girls that were pretty much our team,” said senior Katryna Hahn. “I’ve been up here since sophomore year, and it is a huge leadership change over.”

“I think it will be good though, a new team, new girls. I think it will be good,” Hahn added.

New head coach Steve Dunrud believes the girls will be positive and show that they are better than many opponents will expect.

“We replaced a lot of girls, and I’m sure a lot of coaches and teams will look at what we have and think, ‘oh, they’ll be ok, but probably nothing special,’” Dunrud said. “But our goal is to work hard and improve every day, and by the time tournaments roll around we’ll be playing our best and we’ll have cleaned up some of the areas that we need to.”

The success they had will be hard to duplicate, as the Stars went 29-10 last season and won the District 11 regular season and tournament titles.

“I think it’s going to be very competitive this year, and we have lots of talent and good players all around,” Hahn said. “District should be good, regionals should be good, and we’ll see how far we can get this year.”

The biggest obstacle in their way according to both Hahn and Dunrud is gelling as a team, and teaching the younger players timing, communication and fundamentals.

“Danielle got to play last year, and we’ve always played together, and that’s good,” Hahn said. “I got to play with some of them before (varsity), and knew it wouldn’t be that bad.”

“It will be different, and communication will be hard, but it will be good,” Hahn added.

Dunrud added some things that the Stars hope to improve upon as the season progresses.

“The group that will be playing together hasn’t played together,” Dunrud said. “So, it’s going to take a little work, so it will take time.”

Being louder and more communicative is one thing that Dunrud said the Stars will hope to focus on in the coming weeks.

“They have been quiet these first few days, and that’s something like, ‘girls, we need to be louder,’” Dunrud said. “They probably haven’t had to because they’ve had girls that graduated last year that had played for a long time and took charge.”

“As we get going I think that is something that is going to improve,” Dunrud added. “We just need to get them to use their voices, even when we’re doing simple passing drills to yell, ‘it’s mine, I got it.’”

Also, he hopes that they can pick up the basics quickly, and that’s what they’ve been doing the first few day of practice.

“It is early, and in the first days we just concentrated on the basics, but the girls, they definitely know how to play volleyball,” Dunrud said. “We are real young, we only have eight juniors and seniors, so the majority of the team, there are 29 girls, are freshman or sophomores, so we need the fundamentals.”

“Overall though, there are a lot of girls that really know how to play volleyball the right way,” Dunrud added.

As far as returning as a volleyball coach, Dunrud said it comes down to getting back in the right mind set.

“It’s been five seasons since I coached volleyball, so it’s just been getting my mind back into the thinking of volleyball,” Dunrud said. “I’ve put a lot of my drills and things in the back of my mind, but it’s coming back.”

Dunrud said he is excited to be back on as volleyball coach. He started the program in Rolla years ago, but gave it up five years back, and then he came to Bottineau.

“Volleyball is very close to my heart too, and I will really enjoy watching the improvement that girls will show, and it will be fun to watch,” Dunrud said.

The Stars open the season on Saturday as they host their annual early season tournament. The Stars lost to North Star in the title game last season.
Teams participating in the tournament are: Bottineau, Newburg-Westhope, Rugby, Glenburn, Tioga, Harvey-Wells County, Mohall-Lansford-Sherwood, Towner-Granville-Upham, Velva, Surrey, North Star and Wilton Wing.

Bottineau opens their pool A matches at 9 a.m. against Newburg-Westhope.