Diamond In The Rough

Corbit Adds Vocal Leader To Lady Wolves

GRANT TOLLEY ENTERPRISE-LEADER Sophomore Jada Corbit is playing setter for the Lincoln varsity volleyball team.
GRANT TOLLEY ENTERPRISE-LEADER Sophomore Jada Corbit is playing setter for the Lincoln varsity volleyball team.

LINCOLN -- As first-year Lincoln volleyball coach Stefanie Howard sifted through the spare parts she'll cobble together to field a team this year, she was happy to have found a diamond-in-the-rough.

While sophomore Jada Corbit didn't bring any volleyball experience into the program, she emerged right away as a solid player at the key position of setter.

"I'm short so I never really thought about volleyball," said Corbit, an avid travel softball player that also played basketball in junior high and is a cheerleader. "I have a cousin that was going to play and I came to a couple of practices, and I thought, "This looks like fun."

As it turned out, Corbit's cousin moved away but she approached Howard about trying out.

"We'd had a couple of practices and she said, "Is it too late to try out for volleyball?" Howard said. "I said, 'Sure, come on.' We don't really have a lot of girls that have played much volleyball because the program is so new, so we're all trying to learn as fast as we can."

"I didn't really think I was tall enough to be a hitter, so I just went over to work on being a setter and giving them a good pass during practice," Corbit said. "You just do it over and over and you get better at it."

The setter is a key spot in volleyball as they take the dig from the back row and set up the hitters for kills at the net. This position is much like a point guard in basketball or a quarterback in football.

"Jada was a natural for it," Howard said. "We had a clinic and she learned a lot. She is eager to get better and has worked hard at it. She has already made herself into a great setter."

Corbit said volleyball has already found its way to being her second favorite activity, behind only her first-love of softball.

"I didn't know much about it, but it's a fun sport," Corbit said. "We're all pretty new to it, so we're all having fun learning the game and working at getting better."

Another key to being a successful setter is communication on the court, which Corbit also excels at.

"You have to be pretty vocal," Corbit said. "And I'm loud, so that works for me."

Sports on 08/26/2015