Volleyball: Westlake's Bennett prefers a quick pace

Austin Westlake's Al Bennett, like most coaches, is a numbers guy.

Bennett's numbers, however, make other coaches sit up and take notice.

During his 20-year tenure at the helm of the Lady Chaps volleyball program, Bennett has guided his teams to a 644-131 record, with four Class 5A titles - 1991, 1993, 2002 and 2004 - among seven trips to the UIL State Championships tournament.

Bennett was throwing around some other numbers Saturday to the audience gathered at the Basin's Best Volleyball Clinic at Odessa High. Numbers that showed just how much teams rely on their outside hitters during each match.

"During serve receive, 35 percent of all the kill attempts are going to come from the outside," Bennett explained to the assembled group. "That's a good number, because you want balance across the net on your attack.

"In transition offense, though, 65 percent of the attempts and 68 percent of the kills come from the outside. It's just the way that plays develop."

So what Bennett did for the group, while using several former members of the OHS volleyball team, was show them several drills designed to improve the chances of success from one of the most important positions on the court.

All the time that Bennett had the players running through the drills - some with volleyballs and others without - he was instructing them or calling out certain sets that he wanted, forcing the players to listen and adjust to a block set up in front of them.

The pace was quick, which is a key for Bennett.

"We have drills that completely exhaust the players," he said. "It does two things, getting them used to hitting the ball where we want and also conditioning them at the same time."

Bennett also was hoping to condition the coaches to keeping track of everything that happens on the court during practice and matches. Competition is healthy and Bennett encourages it at all times.

He charts the way players perform during the practice drills, how many swings a particular player has taken, how many jumps a player makes. It all adds up and it starts with the programs that feed into Westlake High School's powerhouse program.

That gives Bennett the benefit of players coming into the Lady Chaps' gym with three years of experience in the offense, able to quickly transition to the high school level.

"You have to teach the fundamentals early," Bennett said. "That way you don't have to change things when they get to high school and you don't have any bad habits that need to be broken.

"The more that you can keep things the same for your players, the more they are going to become familiar with their spots on the floor and their roles and they'll be more relaxed and perform at a high level."