Lisa Hoffmeyer has hit the ground running.
The new volleyball coach of the Jefferson City Lady Jays took over leadership of the program in the middle of March. While the first couple of months involved planning and preparing, this week was all about being on the court.
The Lady Jays wrapped up four days of camp Thursday, capping off a week that had three different sessions filling up the courts at Fleming Fieldhouse and the one on the stage.
"We've been using every corner of the court, and a lot of the times when we're doing our drills and our stations, we're using the edges, the sides, spreading them out as best we can to keep them all busy all the time," Hoffmeyer said.
Part of that includes some exposure to how the new coach wants to do things.
"With these little kids, you can only introduce so much that's yours. With them it's the basic fundamentals," Hoffmeyer said. "The middle-school kids are getting a little touch of what we do and our philosophy. When we get into our high-school kids they hopefully know a bit of it and are moving forward with what we want to be doing during the season."
Roughly 40 campers in kindergarten through fifth grade took part in the first session each day, followed by 60 or so in grades 6-8, followed by slightly more than 40 that will be in high school in the fall.
The varsity in particular has some work to do, as Jefferson City lost seven seniors that captured three straight district titles.
"What we have been focusing on this summer is we have to be relentless," Hoffmeyer said. "We're not going to have some of the big guns in the front row we've been spoiled with over the past couple years. We'll have some strong kids, but it won't be that kid that's going to get us 20 kills in a match most of the time, which we have had in the past.
"So we've been focused a lot on defense. We have a ton of kids who call themselves liberos or defensive specialists, and we've really been hammering those guys over the last couple weeks.
"Blocking, we have to improve on at least getting a touch, because right now that's not a strength for us. We want to make it something where we can compete, we can get up and get a hand on the ball.
"And with our offense, we know we have to speed everything up, because we're going to be trying to beat every defense we see."
Hoffmeyer graduated from Helias in 1998 and went on to play volleyball at Lindenwood University, where she graduated from in 2002. After a few years coaching and teaching in St. Charles, she returned to teach and coach at Lewis and Clark Middle School for seven years.
Hoffmeyer spent the last two years as a JV coach for the Lady Jays under former head coach Chris Meyer, who left when her husband, Shane, took a football coaching job with Georgia Southern.
"The coaching part I felt pretty comfortable, pretty confident, stepping into it," Hoffmeyer said. "It's all the other stuff that has been overwhelming. This camp, for example, trying to get T-shirts out was more of a headache than most people will realize."
Next up is trying to get ready for summer camp trips to Quincy, Ill., and the University of Nebraska. After that, it's spending more time with the bookkeeping and financial issues that are new to Hoffmeyer.
"This is the time where I'm getting a lot squared away before our season gets here," she said. "It is a tremendous blessing to have time to do it now and get things in order the way I would like them. Then when the season gets here, we're ready to move forward."
That's the same way the Lady Jays have spent the summer during recent seasons.
"I think our kids are starting to understand they have to put in the time during the offseason if we want things to work during the season," Hoffmeyer said. "They have bought in and they're spending their springs with us, they're spending their summers with us, and we're coming into the season as a pretty well-groomed group."
Now it's up to a new group of varsity players to follow that lead.
"They do understand (postseason success) is starting to become part of the tradition and part of the expectations around here," Hoffmeyer said. "It is becoming a part of their expectations. ... They don't want to be just pushing to the district tournament, we're pushing beyond that point."