Last week’s resurfacing of the high school gym floor gave the West Central Valley Wildcats volleyball team an early obstacle during the preseason practice period. Wildcat second-year head volleyball coach John Jones said the facility improvement meant the team had to use the nonair-conditioned gym at West Central Valley’s middle school complex in Redfield. The Wildcats switched practice to the mornings starting at 7 a.m. last week to take advantage of the cooler temperatures at the start of the day. Jones updated the Raccoon Valley Radio Network of his team’s progress on last night’s Guthrie County PM Sports Page and spoke about some of the changes his team faced last week. “We had to change our weight routine a little bit, but it worked out pretty good,” Jones said, “We had a lot of free weights at the Redfield building, and they got a decent stairwell over there that we were able to utilize. We might not have all the machines that they do in Stuart, but we were able to utilize the weights at four or five different stations.”

Jones applauded the job of the janitors for setting up fans in the gym during practice hours. He was even more pleased with the attitude shown by his players during last week’s practice situation. “Nobody went away saying this was rotten; their attitudes were really good,” Jones said.

The Wildcat volleyball players had their first-afternoon practice session in the newly resurfaced gym floor yesterday afternoon and will continue with afternoon practice sessions at Stuart going forward. The Wildcats will open the 2018 competition season next Tuesday in Stuart, hosting the AC/GC Chargers in a West Central Activities Conference match.