Williams likes local flavor for KCC volleyball

Metro Sports Report

Jill Williams knows most of the highways and byways within a 90-minute drive of Kirkwood Community College.

It's where she's found the vast majority of her players for the KCC women's volleyball team during her 15 years at the school.

Williams has been very successful with those players with six trips to the NJCAA national tournament and sees no reason to change now.

"Absolutely," she said about sticking with local products. "It's good for our program, it's good for the support of Kirkwood.

"If I had somebody from out of state that wanted to come here, that's great. But it's tough to get out there and recruit. And these kids can get it done."

There are three players from Linn-Mar High School on this year's team. There are two players from Traer and one apiece from Cedar Rapids, Clinton, Cedar Falls, West Liberty, Muscatine, Davenport, Solon, Oskaloosa, and Moline, Ill.

"This is really close this year, isn't it?," Williams remarked.

Junior college volleyball is normally a fall sport, but it was moved to this winter due to concerns with the COVID-19 pandemic. The fifth-ranked Eagles began the season Sunday by falling to 10th-ranked Iowa Central, 25-18, 18-25, 25-18, 25-22, in an ICCAC conference match in a near-empty gym at Johnson Hall.

Spectators are currently not allowed at matches due to the pandemic, so it was an unusual start to the season. Kirkwood played well at times, but Iowa Central had a little too much firepower for the Eagles.

"We made too many of our own unforced errors," said Williams.

Kirkwood is a fairly young team, with eight freshmen and four sophomores on the squad.

"A lot of inexperience," the coach said, "but that's junior college volleyball and to be expected. That's what we have every year."

 Williams likes her group and thinks they'll have another successful year.

"They're pretty athletic," she said. "They want to get things done."

 Kamara Dickerson, Katie Kopriva and Anna Gorsich had eight kills against Iowa Central and Emily Strauss had seven. Rachael Nelson finished with 20 assists and Brooke Mulholland had 14. Gorsich blocked six shots, Strauss blocked five and Jada Golden-Smith blocked four.