Dalton volleyball eyes WCAL repeat despite heavy graduation losses

Graduation hit Dalton’s volleyball team hard after the 2024 season. That’s what’s most often going to happen, though, after the kind of year the Bulldogs had.

Dalton rolled through an unbeaten regular season, dominating the Wayne County Athletic League along the way. The Bulldogs added a district title to their WCAL championship, advancing all the way to the Elite 8 before falling to Independence.

Now comes the question: What next? As veteran coach Allison Clear pointed out, her team had seven players graduate. Two of them received all-state honors.

Setter Sophia Surmay was named first-team All-Ohio, and her classmate Madalyn Coblentz earned third-team honors as a libero. Those specialties aren’t easy positions to replace, regardless of the season had.

“This year I think our team will be more aggressive and have a lot of court awareness,” Clear said. “While we graduated seven seniors, we also have a lot of girls returning and replacing seniors who have played a lot of volleyball and are very talented.”

The core of returners includes seniors Phoebe Lehman (middle hitter) and Chloe Ruehling (defensive specialist) and juniors Sara Geibel (outside hitter), Mei Simmons (middle hitter) and Payton Lehman (right side).

Geibel received an All-Ohio honorable mention as a sophomore. She was the team’s top hitter a year ago. Lehman and Simmons were full-time players and should give the Bulldogs a strong group up front.

They will be helped by varsity newcomer Jaedyn Yeager, an outside hitter who saw a tiny bit of varsity action a year ago. Others new will be seniors Mya Geiser (setter) and Leah Lehman (defensive specialist) and junior defensive specialist Hannah Wenger.

Despite the graduation losses, this is not an inexperienced team. That the Bulldogs' roster is still without a single freshman or sophomore at a small school is very telling along those lines.

“Our strength this year will be volleyball experience,” said Clear, now in her 12th year of coaching at Dalton and owner of more than 200 career victories. “Our team is filled with players who have played volleyball for many years and are comfortable on the court with one another. I think this will help, especially in tight matches.”

In the WCAL, Smithville and Norwayne should be poised to make a run at knocking the Bulldogs off their championship perch. Waynedale is seldom away from the top spot for long.

“While the league is always tough, I predict this year it is going to be the most competitive it has been in a long time,” Clear said. “I think each team has the ability to knock someone off on any given night, and our goal is to be at the top of it again this year.”

Clear said for her team to make a run at defending its championship, it will have to get better at the nonphysical part of the game.

"One of the biggest challenges we face this year is communication,” she said. “This has been our biggest focus this preseason, and we are trying to get better at it each and every day.”