Volleyball head coach Lori Bennett and her athletes are running the Volleyball All Skills and Team Tournament camps this week.

The skills camp is Monday through Wednesday for individual athletes. About 80 girls from fifth through 12th grade are participating. The campers will be taught strategic formations, proper technique, serving and setting.

The Team Tournament camp is a new format Bennett decided to change from the Team Camp this year. Junior varsity and varsity teams will compete and it will run Friday through Saturday.

“We had only two or three teams signed up for the (team) camp,” Bennett said. “We changed it to a tournament format to bring in more teams.”

According to assistant volleyball coach Amy Schreiber, championship t-shirts will be available for the winning team of the tournament.

For the skills camp, the athletes are divided into groups by age and skill level. Bennett said that the younger girls will work more on basic technique while the older girls focus on teamwork and offensive and defensive formations.

Many of the girls were from surrounding towns while some took longer drives to attend the camp. Mattie Watts, 17, drove two and a half hours from Marseilles.

“I decided to go because my sister Shanel attends Eastern,” Watts said.

One camp returnee is Cara Springman of Sullivan. Springman, 14, said she thinks the coaches are nice and she loves the scrimmages.

“I need to get better with my serves because the nets are higher,” Springman said.

One major focus of the skills camp is setting. Bennett described the proper technique she and her coaches teach the girls.

“You have to have ball shaped hands, push hands off early, hit the ball when it’s at your forehead and extend arms with contact,” Bennett said.

Besides Bennett and Schreiber, five Panthers from the team will help coach at the camps. Sophomore outside hitter Kelsey Orr is coaching her first camp.

“The girls are so high energy so I will have a blast,” Orr said. “I love kids and teaching volleyball is a bonus.”

Orr said that being at the camp instructing girls on basic technique will help her remember her fundamentals because she struggles with proper serving. Orr said serving is a four-step process. One part she usually forgets is to load her arms in a bow and arrow position for more power.

“That is probably the biggest fault of volleyball players,” Orr said.

Orr said she is glad that she is working as part of a coaching team with her fellow Panthers before the season, and hopes this translates into a closer trust on the court.

Bob Bajek can be reached at 581-7944 or at rtbajek@eiu.edu.