photo by: Nick Krug

Sophomore Hannah Stewart looks to see who is paddling the boat behind her to find sophomore Sammy Williams and junior Taeghan Sharpe, right, during a team-building exercise called Shipwreck at the start of Lawrence High volleyball camp on Tuesday, July 12, 2016 at LHS. At the front is senior Lexy Anglin.

Hanging on one of the walls inside of the main gymnasium at Lawrence High is a large poster board, which lists the names of all of the volleyball players in the program.

The board, which started at the beginning of the summer and lasted throughout June, has the names on the left side of the sheet and three columns for each day: weightlifting, conditioning and open gym. Next to all of the names are marks signifying players completing workouts each day.

If daily attendance is any indicator, the Lions have shown their dedication throughout the summer.

“This year, rather than us checking them in, they’ve been checking themselves in,” LHS coach Stephanie Magnuson said. “So the kids that are doing club ball and weights outside of school, they have some place where they can show their accountability. It’s visual, the kids can see it every day. It’s been good.”

The Lions are in the middle of their weeklong team camp, playing for three hours each day at LHS. They’ve had more than 30 high schoolers show up, using both the main and auxiliary gyms.

During the camp, the Lions have focused on the fundamentals for the first two days. On Thursday, they will work on their offensive and defensive sets, before playing in a tournament against each other on Friday. Junior Laurel Bird called the tournament at the end of the week, “the highlight of the camp.”

“As a program, we’ve all been coming together and working really hard on all of our skills,” senior Lexi Anglin said. “We’ve come a long ways since the beginning of the summer. I’m looking forward to the season.”

The Lions, who graduated six seniors last year, will have plenty of new faces in new roles. But the team camp is a chance to do more than just play on the court.

“It helps to get to know the freshmen a lot more too, because there’s always a lot of people you don’t know,” Bird said. “The summer really helps you get closer to people.”

Last season, the Lions finished with an 8-29 record, which Anglin said “was really like a roller coaster.”

Looking to improve from last year, the Lions met up about four times a week during June for their open gyms, weightlifting and conditioning.

“We’re trying to get everything down,” Anglin said. “Get ready as a team this summer so we can be ready for the season.”

In addition to all of the high schoolers at camp, the Lions have seen about a dozen former players show up, helping out in any way they can.

“It’s been really exciting to see all of the alumni coming back,” Magnuson said. “I think that says a lot about the climate of the program when people come back and want to help each other and want to be a part of the Lawrence High volleyball culture.”

With all of the extra work throughout the offseason, the Lions are excited to see how much it shows once the season arrives next month.

“I think we have a lot of really talented underclassmen that have just gotten better throughout the summer and throughout last year,” Bird said. “They are ready to step up and help us win.”

Magnuson added: “We’ve had great leadership all summer. We’ve had a great turnout. We’ve had good numbers with our younger kids, as well, which bodes well for our future.”