Patience required as Fox Chapel volleyball program rebuilds

By: George Guido
Saturday, September 11, 2021 | 11:01 AM

The key word for the Fox Chapel girls volleyball program this year — and maybe even next year — is patience.

Second-year coach Diana Andreyko hopes to get the program back to where it was in 2012 when the Foxes were the WPIAL runner-up to Mt. Lebanon. But it will take time.

“We have the potential players to rebuild our system, but they are freshmen and sophomores that should be junior varsity players,” Andreyko said. “We have to keep the girls positive and learn skills together through a difficult season ahead because we are so young.”

Fox Chapel opened its season Sept. 8 with a 3-0 setback against Butler.

Said Andreyko: “The girls do not have a feeder program, so we’re afraid it’s going to take a lot of time and patience. I believe in two years, if the girls stay together, this freshman class has a lot of potential.”

Two of the freshmen are Addie Bursick and Brooke Fenton, both of whom will be setters so they can touch the ball a maximum amount of the time and “start owning the position.”

Thrust into leadership roles this season will be seniors Annabel Siddons and Beata Turnquist, along with junior Alina Stiger.

“Our 10th-graders should, technically, be JV players, but they almost have to be like upperclassmen and they had some experience last year,” said Andreyko, the former Baldwin standout who played at Pitt, where she was an all-Big East first team selection in 2006. She later played professionally in Europe.

Andreyko was an assistant for two years at Fox Chapel before taking over as head coach in the covid-abbreviated 2020 season.

Andreyko is happy she found assistant Natalie Meyer, who was Thomas Jeffersonl’s junior varsity coach for several seasons.

“We never met before, but it’s been a lot of teaching and it’s good having her with us,” said Andreyko.

Meyer played club volleyball at Penn State.

Class 4A is usually not the place to get a program healthy again, but the Foxes have already seen Butler and will compete against some of the WPIAL’s top schools such as North Allegheny, Shaler, Seneca Valley, Pine-Richland and North Hills.

“We have to stay confident and stay calm,” Andreyko said.

Next up is also getting the junior high program on track and finding athletes who will have the initiative to play club ball in the offseason and put in the time it takes to learn basic skills.

Fox Chapel has won 10 girls volleyball section titles in the past, the latest in 2011.

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