SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. – The Shelbyville Central Golden Eaglettes volleyball program experienced a rocky 2024 campaign, finishing winless on the season in Kendall Hampton’s first season at the helm. However, despite what the record showed, Hampton’s insistence on fitness and outhustling their opponents in year one drew the attention of longtime local volleyball watchers. 

“All I kept hearing from the girls and from the people in the stands and even officials…I had officials come up to me and just talk about how much they had improved from the previous year and how we were competing, and they haven't really seen that level of play from [SCHS],” Hampton said. “And so for us just to keep working, I mean, it's just a lot of encouragement from everybody watching that does know the game, you know, recognizing a lot of the strides that the kids have made even though they weren't necessarily seeing that in the record book.”

Hampton welcomes back two seniors for 2025, but she says the entire team has shown a hunger to keep improving and reset the standard of what Shelbyville Central volleyball should look like moving forward. Despite not winning a single regular season match last season, the Eaglettes have worked to not just improve in the skills department, but increase their level of confidence and belief in themselves on the court.

“This year, I'm returning quite a bit of what we still played with last year,” said Hampton, “So, at this point, if you look out at the court at any given time, I usually have four sophomores out there at one time. We have two seniors this year that are definitely part of the success that we're gonna have. I've got a few juniors sprinkled in there, but the bulk of the team is still that same freshman class. And so they're coming back with more confidence, more maturity. A lot of them went out and played clubball also, so they're coming back with more experience outside of what I'm even teaching them. And I think they're just really hungry to keep improving. We had a scrimmage [on Tuesday] against Fayetteville, and it's almost like I could see that light switch finally happened for them. They've always worked hard. They've always wanted to win. They've always wanted to be a good player and keep moving forward, but we still always had an issue of the belief being there. So, them understanding that they are good enough to belong and that they can compete with high level teams and that the winning culture wasn't established and so we would always keep close to every team we played, but it was really difficult for us to finish a game out. And they have really overcome that hurdle this summer, and preseason in a lot of our play days and scrimmages and finishing sets and winning, you know, three sets, pushing games to five sets if we're playing five sets, pushing games to three sets if we're playing three sets. And just a change in their overall attitude on the floor."

Junior Outside Hitter, Nadiya Locke (4), and sophomore Middle, Jada Berry (25), go up for the block at Chapel Hill.

Submitted Photo

“Instead of just being happy, we're there and surviving,” she continued. “Now we're at a place where we're actually executing and we're being consistent. And if we make a mistake, we're not dropping our heads…Now we make an error maybe twice. And then after that, they're right back to where they should be. So they're really clicking right now, and they're definitely stepping into their own. And I feel like that confidence is building with every single set they play. And, honestly, as a coach, that's the only thing I feel like they still are missing.”

The Eaglettes’ growth can be attributed to numerous differing factors, but one of the biggest was Hampton’s focus in building the basics a season ago – planning for long-term program development rather than short-term wins and losses. Specifically, taking pride in the name on the front of your jersey and playing with a sense of pride and urgency for that name.

“So last year, it was a lot of building skill and kind of teaching the way that the pro I want the program to run and how we're gonna be as volleyball players now under Shelbyville Central High School and what it means to wear that uniform and how we carry ourselves and, and just kind of changing that culture, starting to shift there into what I want it to be for them,” explained Hampton. “So this year we're coming back and I'm not having to start from scratch. They were able to get that base last year, and now we're able to build right off of that. So, whereas last year, we were just, hey, play great defense and hustle and, you know, we're just gonna keep digging and digging and digging until they make a mistake. That's kind of the philosophy where we were. We didn't have a lot of power, but we were great at running ball downs and and just balls down and out hustling the other team. And we were learning a lot. And this season, that's definitely shifted to ‘we're not in survival.’”

“Now we're attacking…there's a system. We have an offense we’re running. And those players, now that they're getting to experience things like running specialty sets or plays or attacks, you know, they're just loving every minute of it because those are fun to do. And so once we execute one, then that morale just builds, and they wanna keep doing it and keep doing it. So since that base is there, that's allowing us to do a lot of those things, and that's gonna allow us to compete at a much higher level with the teams in our district.”

This season, District 9-AAA is made up of seven teams: Shelbyville Central, Lincoln County, Lawrence County, Columbia Central, Coffee County, Franklin County, and Tullahoma. The 2024 district champion – Spring Hill – moved down to Class AA after just missing the cutoff for the highest classification in the state for volleyball.

“We don't have an easy district,” said Hampton. “This year, we’ve got seven really good teams. But I do feel like this year, those gaps are gonna close quite a bit more, and I can't wait to see how they perform against some of these teams that they've been facing year after year.”

Lawrence County, Lincoln County, and Columbia Central are the preseason favorites to compete for the vacant top spot left by the Lady Raiders, but Hampton sees the opportunity for her program to take big leaps forward in her second season. Led by a trio of returning sophomores in Jada Berry – a District 9-AAA All-Tournament selection as a Middle who totaled 100 kills and 90 blocks last season – Tatiana Clark – a Libero who led the team last season with the best serve receive % at 1.32 out of 3.00 – and Kenley Patton – a Defensive Specialist as well as an Outside Hitter who led the team with 26 aces last season – the Eaglettes have a promising future ahead of them. 

Hampton also brought in a few transfers to help bolster the roster for 2025. Senior Setter, Jazrea Falls from Franklin County, as well as sophomore Outside, Kaylee Stafford from Cascade, look to be solid additions for the Eaglettes this season. 

“This year we have talked a lot about finding consistency,” Hampton concluded, “controlling the controlables and having a ‘next play mentality’ . They are truly embodying this and I’m looking forward to their continued improvement.”

The Eaglettes open the 2025 season on Monday against Franklin County at 6:00 p.m.