Cullman County VB teams waiting to start the new season:
County teams grabbed the spotlight at CCBOE Media Day:
GDW Analysis:
For the 7 schools in the Cullman County system, volleyball time vastly approaches.
Under rules of the Alabama High School Athletic Association, teams can get on the court August 4 in preparing for the 2025 season.
The season for most of the schools will start on August 21.
Earlier this week, the schools got a chance to discuss what they are looking forward to as the CCBOE Media Day was held in the conference room of the board office.
Vinemont was first up on the schedule with the Lady Eagles the only school in the county to have a new leader.
Kaydi Woodard is now at Vinemont after she delivered back to back to back state championships at Addison.
Woodard follows Bobby Daniels who had the Lady Eagles soaring to their greatest time on the floor, 49 wins in 2024 and a 2nd round berth to the AHSAA 3A playoffs.
This was new to Woodard to be given the opportunity of one on one conversation with local media, including Gameday Weekly.
The week before, Vinemont got a good test by going to a playday at Wallace State in working hard during the 3 day event to head into the new season eager to see more success by the program.
After Vinemont was in the spotlight came Hanceville, Cold Springs, Good Hope, Holly Pond, Fairview and West Point.
Kate Peek of Cold Springs, Meagan Cagle of West Point endure their 2nd season at their current school.
Morgan Hammack enters her 3rd year with Hanceville as does Katie Ball at Fairview.
Adrien Adams of Holly Pond returns for her 5th season.
Natasha Holder from Good Hope is the dean of the coaches in county volleyball. Holder will be coaching the Lady Raiders for the 8th consecutive season.
Holder has shown county volleyball presents parity. The last two years Good Hope has won the Cullman County championship, but not as a No. 1 seed.
Good Hope was seeded 4th going into the tournament last October at Holly Pond and engaged a tremendous run to take home the grand prize.
The year before, the Lady Raiders were No. 3 from the seeding.
Each of the coaches see parity can make the setup of every match being a challenge in trying to get a good seed into the tournament.
The matches will have additional intensity with Vinemont, Holly Pond and Hanceville. The three are again paired together in AHSAA 3A, Area 11 once again. It's a 5 team area with JB Pennington and Locust Fork coming out of Blount County.
Vinemont was the winner in 2024 with Holly Pond 2nd as both qualified for the regional round of the playoffs.
The others have outside foes to face in their area.
Cold Springs is in 2A Area 11 with Falkville and Winston County.
Good Hope plays in 4A, Area 13 with Danville, East Lawrence and West Morgan.
Fairview and West Point are 5A programs. Fairview has Arab, Guntersville and Scottsboro to play in Area 14, West Point sees Lawrence County and Russellville opposing them in Area 15.
Holly Pond, Vinemont and West Point earned postseason play a season ago.
The others are set to fight through the challenges and make it a large group of county schools to be involved in the sport in the later part of October.
Photo of Vinemont Lady Eagles VB at the Wallace State CC playday July 16. In the middle is new Vinemont coach Kaydi Woodard.
GDW photo by Johnny Thornton.
