Young Dexter VB coach seeing the positives through adversity

DEXTER – The 2023 Dexter High School volleyball season has been a trying one, and it doesn’t appear that it will become any easier anytime soon with several challenging tests looming on the horizon. However, one wouldn’t sense that when watching the Bearcats, who have tried to maintain a level of positivity through their tough times.

“I think this start was meant to be,” first-year coach Haylee Orf said recently. “It is a great humbling. All of these storms are meant to build you.”

The Bearcats (1-6) dropped a pair of matches in this weekend’s Dig For Life Tournament in Cape Girardeau, as they were swept 2-0 by Fredericktown and Notre Dame.

The tests don’t get any easier for Orf’s girls, as Dexter will visit Kennet (4-1) on Tuesday (6:30 p.m.) and Bernie (6-4-1) on Thursday (7:30 p.m.), before returning to the Bearcat Event Center on Sept. 18 against Woodland (7-3).

“It is how you decide to react,” Orf said of handling the struggles. “It is how you decide to respond. We’re going to get back to work.”

The Bearcats have not endured a losing season since going 13-16-1 in 2010, and there remains a lot of volleyball still to be played over the next seven-plus weeks, which Orf feels is a blessing.

“It is fortunate that we have seen (this adversity) at the beginning of the season,” Orf explained, “because now we have a month-and-a-half to lock in and work.”

Orf knew that this specific team would be different than some of the highly successful Bearcat teams in recent years. Dexter does not have the height up front that it generally has, so Orf has to teach different skills and coverages to combat that.

“We know that we are a little mismatched,” Orf said. “We know that. But we played well this summer and beat a lot of teams with some great height. But no team was quite as quick, and as tall, as what we have seen.”