Consistency and communication are the words most often used by second-year Clay volleyball coach Tracy Donnelly these days.

The Eagles (5-2, 3-1 City League) are off to a solid start, but Donnelly has been finding herself summoning her inner Forest Gump when describing her team's play through Sept. 14.

“We've been up and down,” Donnelly said. “I tell everybody we're like a box of chocolates – you never know what you're gonna get. At times we look very good and at times we fall apart. Against Notre Dame we were tied 7-7 in the third game and all of a sudden it was 19-7 Notre Dame, and all they did was serve. Communication is a part of it. We defintitely don't communciate consistently.

“We have leaders, but they are very quiet leaders. They do really well together and then we kind of fall apart all together. We play really well at times and poorly at times. It's extremely frustrating for everybody, not just me as a coach.”

Donnelly said the Eagles held a “players-only” meeting “to correct some things” following Monday's CL win over Woodward.

“We'll see how that goes,” Donnelly said.

Clay also has victories over Northview, Perrysburg, Start and Whitmer, with losses to Notre Dame and Southview. Both losses took just three games.

Donnelly, however, expects more from a team that returned five starters from a squad that lost to eventual CL champion St. Ursula Academy in last year's CL final four semifinals.

“We have no height,” Donnelly said. “Alexis Morrison is our tallest girl, at probably 5-10, in the middle. To play in the City League against those (better) teams, you have to have some height.”

Morrison, a senior middle hitter, is one of the returning starters along with senior middle hitter Torrie Reichert, junior setter/outside hitter Kristen Kayser, junior outside hitter/setter Alex Roberts and junior libero Kim Crawford.

Reichert, who is serving as a team captain along with Kayser, earned honorable mention all-league honors last season. Defensive specialist Miranda Cortez is the Eagles' only other senior.

“We have a couple injuries and we might have a couple girls with mono,” Donnelly said. “We're kind of in disarray right now. At this point, it would be good if anyone would step up.”

Mallory Mottmiller, a 5-8 junior outside hitter, has shown promise this season, according to Donnelly.

“She is a very good blocker and we need to work on getting more offense from her,” the coach said. “She moved from middle hitter to outside this year because we had two senior middles who had played in the middle last year, and she was one of our better blockers.”

Donnelly added that she still has high hopes for the rest of the season.

“We'd like to win the (Springfield) Golden Spike tournament next Saturday and we want to win the Eagle Invitational at the end of the season,” she said. “And, we'd like to get into the City League tournament again and compete for the finals.”

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