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Q&A With Kelli Wilkinson
After a dual-championship season, St. Paul’s School for Girls volleyball coach Kelli Wilkinson is ready to repeat. Behind Maryland Gatorade Player of the Year senior Bailey Webster, the Gators look to go back-to-back in both the Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference Tournament and the Maryland-D.C. Private Schools Tournament.
Joey Merkel: How does it feel to have the A Conference title?
Kelli Wilkinson: It’s really rewarding. This is just a great group of girls I had this year, and a lot of them I’ve coached in club the past three years as well. So they’re really a tight knit group, and they work really hard. It was really rewarding for them. Especially last year, we went undefeated in the regular season and then lost in the championship in five [games] so it was good to come back this year and win.
JM: You lost to Archbishop Spalding last year in the finals and again this year in the regular season, but this year you came back and beat them in the finals. How does it feel to overcome those two losses?
KW: Good. It’s always a good matchup against them. We had a horrible regular season matchup against them so it was nice to come back and sweep them in three straight games, and then again we swept them in the following week in the Maryland-D.C. championships, too.
JM: Who or what do you attribute most of last year’s success to?
KW: We had tremendous senior leadership and we also have junior Bailey Webster who is one of the top recruits in the country. She is pretty much unstoppable at this level.
JM: How well do you think JV will mesh with the varsity team coming off of a championship?
KW: I think it will be a big step up for them. Preseason will be really important, and for them to work out over the summer. A couple of them play club or at least have played a little since the season ended but that’s pretty key. I have a good group of returning players. I lost four starters, but I have a big core returning as well.
JM: After a championship season, you’re losing four seniors including a senior setter. Who do you expect to see really step up their play next year and also fill that leadership role for next season?
KW: Bailey Webster. She’ll be a senior, and she’s the best player in the state. She was the Gatorade Player of the Year for the state of Maryland, and she was All-Metro Player of the Year, the Baltimore County Player of the Year. She is the best player in the state, and I have her coming back as a senior so I expect good leadership out of her. I also have Joanna Durham, she’ll be a senior, Sarah Fitzgerald and her little sister Hailey, she’s coming in as a freshman and I expect her to start right away. She’s got big shoes to fill as a freshman.
JM: What are you doing in the offseason to get your team back to the championship?
KW: A lot of them play club ball, and I’ve been having some open gyms, and I run a camp over the summer. A lot of them have been playing mostly through this weekend. Memorial Day weekend has been when the clubs have ended around here. They’ll do some camps too.
JM: And what do you think your chances of repeating are?
KW: I think we should do well in the A Conference. The MD-DC tournament is going to be tough with Good Counsel. I don’t think they graduated anybody, and they were really loaded last year and had some young talent. So that’ll be a really good match.
JM: Other than another championship, what would you say the main goals for the team are this year?
KW: Just to play as a team. My seniors that graduated this year, they have been playing on the team for the past two or three years, so they were really a fine-tuned machine. This year, losing the starters who have been starting the past few years, it’s a whole different mix of girls so really just finding good chemistry and working together well. If we can do that, we have good talent; it’s just a matter of working together and playing well together.
Posted June 13, 2008
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