Buckingham County High School’s varsity girls volleyball team experienced only one victory during its 2018 campaign, lacking players with pronounced experience, but embers of a brighter future were visible.

“It was a struggle,” Lady Knights Head Coach Neal Aldridge said of his team’s 1-19 run this year. “We graduated nine last year …”

He noted this included his six starters and technically a seventh starter in the form his libero.

“So I only had three returning players this year, and those three didn’t have a lot of experience, because I had nine seniors last year — hard to get the other three into the games,” Aldridge said.

However, the coach did make a point to praise the effort of his three returners, though. They were seniors Dien Dang, Kaleigh Jones and Caitlyn Amos.

“My seniors, actually for what little experience they had, played well,” Aldridge said. “On a team that is as young as it was, we were in a lot of games. We actually took a set from Goochland, which as far as I know, nobody in Buckingham history has ever done, as far as volleyball goes. We took a set from them, we took a set from Amelia, we took a set from (Bluestone) …”

The coach pointed to these set victories as the high points of the 2018 season.

The seniors set a strong example for the younger players rising up in the program.

“We definitely have some promise coming up,” Aldridge said. “We have one 10th-grader who played with us this year who was still eligible to play JV (junior varsity), but she actually started for me.”

That player was middle hitter Meredith DeLong-Maxey, who made the All-James River District second team.

“She played really well,” the coach said.

The Lady Knights’ lone victory this year came Sept. 20 when they beat visiting Randolph-Henry High School 3-2.

“We have six juniors that will be seniors next year, so that’s a good thing, and plus we have probably four really promising JV players moving up,” Aldridge said. “So I think next year we’ll be maybe a little bit stronger as far as offensively. We played really good defense this year, but our offense, we just didn’t have anybody that could really, really, truly just put the ball away. So it was a lot of playing, a lot of long rallies, that type of thing.”