"Determined" Lady Bulldog's Flying Start Marked by Senior Leadership

MILES, TX-- The Miles Lady Bulldog volleyball team is off to a flying start with a 7-1 record to open the 2018 season.

The Lady Bulldogs recently took home the Gold Bracket consolation trophy at the Best of the West Tournament in Wink over the weekend.

At the tournament, Miles went 5-1, defeating Comstock two times, Van Horn, Grandfalls and Trinity School of Midland.

Senior defensive specialist and outside hitter Gissele Everhardt made the All-Tournament team for her impressive defensive display.

After finishing third in District 7-2A which featured teams like defending state champ Bronte and Water Valley, the Lady Bulldogs are ready to take that next step.

For head coach Kaitlyn Braswell, that means relying on her four seniors returning to the court.

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“It’s really exciting,” Braswell said of her returning senior class. “All four of them have shown up ready to play. They’ve all stepped up as leaders for our team, which is awesome because we’re going to pull some that haven’t played yet up...It’s exciting because we have talent. There’s no doubt that we have talent.”

Taylor Halfmann, Jessica Wilde and Hailey Smith, along with Everhardt, are the senior class Braswell is looking to in order to make a push for a district championship.

The great start to the Lady Bulldogs season can also be credited to the growth from last year’s 22-12 run that ended after an area championship victory.

Braswell says her team was a bit of an “underdog” last year given the company they kept in their district.

This year, things have changed in Braswell’s eyes.

“Last year, we were all new. We were all young, including me,” Braswell said. “This year, I think we have a name. We’re known now. That’s really exciting.”

While the seniors have stepped up in Braswell’s second year, having junior all-around athlete Skyler Brooks helps, too.

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“She works for it,” Braswell said of the Ole Miss softball commit. “It naturally comes to her, but she works for it. She has her teammates who push her, too. That’s just all six of them on the court at all times. All six of them are smart and they’re ready to play. They’re good teammates. They encourage each other. It takes them all, especially for volleyball. It’s definitely a team sport.”

Braswell, a graduate of Bronte and former Lady Longhorn volleyball player, knows what she wants to be as a coach given the coaching turnover during a four-year career at her alma mater.

“From my playing experience at Bronte, just about every year, we had a different coach,” Braswell said. “So, that experience alone, having all those different perspectives, seeing what I wanted to be and didn’t want to be, having all kinds of coaching experience just in four years of high school was a pretty good way for me to start here knowing what I wanted to do.”

Braswell would continue to praise her athletes, saying, “they’ve created it themselves.”

“They shaped what they wanted to be and I went with that, with who they are,” Braswell added.

With the team Miles has for 2018, the expectations are extremely high.

“We expect good things and we’re working for them,”Braswell said. “We talked...about what our goals are; what they are and what we’re going for. They all have high expectations for themselves. That’s good, that’s what we want. So, they’re going to work for it. They’re determined, so they will do it.”

The Lady Bulldogs will host the Wall Lady Hawks, who they scrimmaged almost two weeks ago, on Tuesday at noon.