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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

Last year’s Thompson Warriors had another successful year, including an area title and a trip to the Elite Eight once again.

While this year’s Warriors will look a lot different on the court, there’s lots of hope that they can use their emerging talent to come together and be the best version of themselves.

“The goal is always to get back to the Elite Eight and compete for the state championship, but we don’t talk about it every day,” Thompson head coach Judy Green said. “We just talk about, ‘We’ve got to get better every day and have better relationships with each other and a better understanding of what we’re trying to do.” 

Since the last time the Warriors took the floor against McGill-Toolen in the Elite Eight, they’ve lost 10 seniors to graduation, including Shelby County Player of the Year Chloe Mittelstadt at outside hitter and fellow All-County selections Olivia Kelly and Anne Shelby.

Because of that, Thompson will have an entirely new starting lineup in 2024. That made it important for Green to identify the players and lineups that would work best for the team, and she believes the work they’ve put in over the past few months has been very solid.

“We’ve taken a lot of time this summer to experiment and look at people at different positions and just try to find the right pieces of the puzzle to fall in place,” Green said. “The amount of time that we got to compete this summer was pretty valuable for us because we got to try so many different lineups and combinations.”

In the process, Green has leaned toward a 6-2 rotation instead of the 5-1 they used with Kelly at setter as both of the team’s new setters have size and can hit as well.

Two key parts of the Warriors this season will be familiar faces from last season for fans: middle blocker Hannah Drexel and outside hitter Kenzly Foote.

The Wallace State commit Drexel has been working hard to progress her game over the offseason, and Green believes she helps make the rest of the team better as well.

“I think that she really does a great job raising the level of play of people around her as a middle blocker because middles need that kind of energy,” Green said.

As for Foote, she’ll be a six-rotation player at outside after an All-County season last year at libero. She turned in a balanced stat-line of 454 digs, 65 aces and 107 kills in 2023 and will be expected to do all three this year at outside after progressing both as a player and a leader.

Speaking of leaders, Maddie Baxley is one of the team’s most vocal players on the court and Green aims to use her in side-outs and for landing the final hit.

Those three will run alongside a pair of newcomers in libero Anna Campbell and setter-hitter Maddie Henderson. Campbell is playing high school volleyball for the first time but has lots of skill and helps calm the team down, while the 6-foot-1 sophomore Henderson looks to make a big impact in her first season since coming from Evangel.

That balance of talent will be a difference from last season when most of the offense flowed from Kelly to Mittelstadt. While that obviously worked to success a year ago, Green looks forward to spreading out the offense and utilizing more of the six players on the floor.

“We’re definitely not going to be the team that is going to rely on the arm of one player,” Green said. “We relied a lot last year on Chloe’s arm, and obviously being an opposite and a right-side player it was a no brainer that that’s what we needed to do, but I think this year I think our offense will be more balanced.”

Even while replacing a multi-year player at setter, Green believes passing is one of their strengths. The goal now is to keep ball control at a consistently high level to ramp up the offensive pace and open up more aspects of the attack.

“I do think we will be more dynamic, and we work every day on serving and passing and controlling that little white ball so we can do some fun things offensively,” Green said.

Overall, Green believes this team can dictate the game up front, mainly due to its size. Their goal now has been working on defense to steal more points on blocks and build off those for runs.

“I think that for us right now, we have good size, we have good athleticism,” Green said. “It’s probably one of the biggest, most physical, longest teams that I think I have coached, so we’ve been working very diligently on our blocking and our defense because I think we do feel that we could take over a match and steal some momentum with our blocking, and that’s been pretty fun to work with.”

Reclassification brought a shake-up to Thompson’s road to super regionals as Oak Mountain and Hillcrest-Tuscaloosa replaced Vestavia Hills in Class 7A, Area 5, joining Hoover and Tuscaloosa County to make a five-team area. Like last season, the Warriors will only play one match against each team.

Four of the five teams reached super regionals last season, and combined with the unique nature of five teams battling for two spots, the race for the area crown will be as competitive as ever.

It will be another challenging road to the top for Thompson, but it’s one that Green has been preparing her team for. She said one of the biggest factors to their success is how they take those challenges and get better.

“It’s a long season,” Green said. “It’s definitely going to be a journey, and there’s going to be highs and lows, and I think how we how we handle the adversity that comes our way, that’s pretty important for this team and it’s where our new leadership is going to have to really do a great job on the team.”

One of the ways the Warriors expect to combat that is through their energy and the way they play the game. The team has grown close through summer play and its mountain retreat, and Green says it shows in their joy and intensity on and off the court.

They want to use that to their advantage and win the mental game this season.

“I think expectation-wise, we want to be the toughest team that you play when you’re on the other side of the net,” Green said. “We’re not going to apologize for how we play the game and for our energy that we bring to the court, we’re going to be who we are, and people will have to step up and match it. And if they can’t, then I feel like Thompson has an advantage when it comes to that.”

While the Warriors will absolutely have big shoes to fill this season, Green is confident in the team that she has between their skills on the court and how they handle themselves off the court.

Even though there may not be as much continuity in their starting six, the one thing that will carry on from last year’s team is their dedication to the program’s culture. To Green, that’s one of the most important things.

“All of the girls that are on the team, that made the team, that were selected, that they understand the culture of Thompson volleyball,” Green said. “They know what the ultimate goal is. They’re committed to it. They fight for it every day, and they hold each other accountable, and as long as we can continue to do those kinds of things, then positive things can happen.”