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Sports

Adams Joins Dedham Volleyball Coaching Staff

Former UMass-Boston player brings college experience to her coaching.

The Dedham girls' volleyball team is hoping that an addition to the coaching staff and some seeds planted in the spring will blossom into a few victories this fall. 

Middle school teacher and former Whitman-Hanson head coach Stephanie Adams has joined Marge Bohan as co-head coach for the 2010 season.

"I think she is going to be a real bonus to our program," said Bohan, who has coached the team for the past 33 years.  "She will come in with some recent playing experience [at UMass Boston] and a few years of coaching under her belt."

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Without a feeder program at the youth or lower school levels, most of the players come in without any real experience playing the game.  To compensate, Bohan has instituted two springtime clinics at Dedham Middle School.

"We can already see those couple of days in June where we teach those skills paying off," Bohan said.  "They come out in August and they are just that little bit ahead."

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A total of 15 freshman were among the 36 total students who came out for the "very tough try-outs" orchestrated by Adams.  The final 10 include sophomore Jodi Munchbach who will be playing her second season at the varsity level, and Mary Kate Kirby, a freshman.

Bohan said they were still experimenting with different players at different positions, and hadn't yet decided if they will go with one setter or two.  "We have to see where the talent is," she said.

Gaining confidence as a team and earning respect in the league will be among the team's biggest challenges. Both are tall orders considering the winless (0-18) record the girls left last year.  Bohan said they would approach the season "one game at a time" and would strive to stay within themselves.

"We just try to prepare for each game as they come and bring our A game with us so we can walk away saying we did everything we could," Bohan said.

Tri-captains Sam Parr, Aleetha Bartolome and Tori Wood, who missed last season due to injury, will be leading the team this year.  They will be attempting to step into the "pretty big sneakers" left behind when Julia Berkey, who helped with the summer conditioning program, and Maggie Griesmer were graduated last year. 

"We put together a really strong competitive tryout and we're feeling really good about the whole session," said Bohan.  "Now we'll see what happens."

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