Hailey Oke has put in a lot of hard work to prepare for another year of digs and kills on the volleyball court.
The 19-year-old Massey Drive resident will be gunning for floor time in her sophomore season with the Memorial University Sea-Hawks varsity women’s volleyball squad that competes in the Atlantic University Sport.
Oke has been busy this week lending a helping hand as one of the coaches for the Memorial Sea-Hawks summer volleyball camp for youth in the capital city.
She is at home when she’s on the volleyball court so she’s anxious for the Sea-Hawks training camp to officially open Tuesday and looks forward to seeing how she fares in her second year.
“I’m very excited about another season,” she said.
The Sea-Hawks finished 8-12 for the fourth and final playoff spot in the AUS one year ago, but then dropped a 3-0 decision to Dalhousie in the AUS playoff round.
It might not have been the finish the team wanted, but Oke said she was able to take a lot of things away from her rookie experience that she feels will help her be a better player this time around. She said she learned a lot about the game, how university sports work and more importantly she learned a thing or two about herself as she made the big step into the real world after graduating from Corner Brook.
“It’s a lot more time consuming practicing every single day, but it’s totally worth it and I learned so much about the game and about myself so it’s been great,” Oke said.
This season she expects the team can improve on its record by focusing on being a team instead of worrying about personal agendas or individual development. She thinks success will come if the team works on little goals that will help them achieve the bigger ones like winning an AUS title.
She’s just going to do what she can to help the team and not worry about her individual play. She’s been hitting the gym on a regular basis so she’s ready to play the game at the high level that comes with the territory.
“I need to work on just being present in every situation and trying to better myself every single day because it adds up,” she said. I’ve been working really hard to try and better myself for this season and get my fitness up to the level it needs to be so I can focus on the volleyball.”
