The Caesar Rodney High School volleyball team’s tournament dreams were short-lived yet again this year, as the squad was knocked out of the playoffs in the first round, Nov. 1.

    The Riders lost to Wilmington Friends, 3-0 (25-14, 25-15, 25-12), as their season came to an end.

    Head coach George Fisher said he was somewhat shocked at how his team lost. He said Friends was a very good team, but the things that the Riders were doing were uncharacteristic of them, making the loss particularly difficult.

    “I just don’t think we played as well as we could have,” Fisher said. “We weren’t able to put it all together. We were inconsistent. We’d do some good things, then take a few steps back.”

    Asked if his team, an inexperienced group for the most part, was nervous going into the game and if those nerves played a factor, he said he did not think so.

    “I don’t think we were as nervous as we were last year,” Fisher said. “We basically made fundamental mistakes, things that we work on in practice, and you can’t make too many fundamental errors. Plus we played a really good team.”

    He said despite being knocked out and not achieving their goal of getting past the first round, the season was a successful one for a young team.

    With a roster of players lacking a lot of varsity experience, Fisher said seeing the girls improve on a weekly basis made it an impressive year.

    “We had some players that turned the corner that became very good volleyball players,” he said. “We made tremendous improvements from August to November. We’ll continue to get better in the future, but for this year it was successful and I’m very proud of them.

    “They really didn’t know a whole lot about the sport of volleyball, and to see them now and see we had a better record than last year, I was tickled and very pleased.”

    The Riders will face a challenge similar to the one they faced at the beginning of this season, as they again will graduate three of their starters and another four bench players.

    One of those graduating is the team’s setter, Kylie Shuba, meaning Fisher will have to find his third setter in as many seasons.

    He has an idea of who could get the job, but it will all come down to who performs the best when tryouts come around next August.

    “When August comes I’m starting with a brand new setter, so we may take our lumps early,” Fisher said. “The best girl will get the job. One thing I’ve learned through watching and playing sports is you really don’t go in with the attitude of who gets the job.

    “You leave it open to competition and they have to prove themselves, they have to win it.”

    By searching for his new setter this way, instead of grooming one when he knows a setter is graduating, Fisher said the team comes together more.

    “There is a certain meshing that goes on through the whole process,” he said. “I’ve got a couple of young ladies competing for that job next year, but then working at CR you never know who’s going to transfer in from out of state.”

    So when next August rolls around, Caesar Rodney will be in a position Fisher knows well. He’s just hoping in that next go round his team can go further into the tournament.

    “Maybe one night we’ll put it all together in the tournament and it’ll be our turn,” he said.

Email Brian Citino at brian.citino@doverpost.com