Cape Henlopen boys volleyball rides memorable first season to playoffs
LEWES, Del. (BVM) — Cape Henlopen’s Tyler Coupe entered new volleyball territory this year. However, this wasn’t in the normal capacity in which Coupe has grown accustomed to over the years at Cape as the school’s girls volleyball head coach. No, this was in a new enterprise, though one the coach is quite familiar with — boys volleyball.
As a standout volleyball player at Salesianum in Wilmington and later at West Chester University, Coupe understands the game well. However, he was dealing with more than just teaching the game. This year, Coupe was responsible for starting the program from the ground up while also working the team through the ongoing pandemic and new COVID-19 protocols, this in addition to his continuing role as the head coach for the girls team in the fall. Though difficult, the energy spent on making the team the best it could be was worth it for Coupe.
“Our first concern as coaches, there’s three of us who were kind of co-coaching, was ensuring we even had enough boys to even play,” Coupe said. “We were lucky enough to have 14 kids tryout for our first year which we thought was a great number and we were really thrilled to see that. … We as coaches have felt great with it. It’s been a lot of fun.”
As a new program learning the ropes of real game action, it was an unsurprisingly slow start for the boys team. Of the 14 players on the roster, only two came into the season with any true boys volleyball experience as the two transferred into the school from Pennsylvania where the sport is more popular.
“So we’ve had two kids who knew the game pretty well and had a pretty good skill set so to see them take on a leadership role with the other 12 players has been really cool to see as a coach,” Coupe said. “To see these individual athletes come in with no idea how to play and within a month really grasp the skills and are now peaking together where they’re able to string together some wins has been absolutely awesome to see.”
The Vikings stumbled to an 0-4 start with losses to Conrad School, Newark and Indian River twice. Though they were swept in their first match of the season by Indian River, the Vikings were able to avoid sweeps over their next three matches showing growth along the way.
“After our first month it was almost like a light bulb went off, as cliché as it is, when the boys really picked up the subtle nuances of the sport and really started doing better within the practices,” Coupe said. “Those first two losses were huge in the sense they gave us real time reps. … By that third match, we started to show signs we understood where we needed to be as individuals.”
On April 26, the team would finally get over the hump as they would record the program’s first match victory with a 3-1 win over St. Mark’s High School.
“It was awesome,” Coupe said of the win. “I think that is cool to know and see the journey it has taken to get here. … I’ve been a part of some cool things, but I’ve never been a part of a team that started from scratch. … But some of the successes we’ve found already have been a surprise to me. To see how into it the boys are has been the coolest part for me.”
This was just the beginning for the Vikings however as the team would win their next two matches over John Dickinson School and Brandywine, giving the team its first winning streak. Though the streak would end with a 3-2 loss to Delaware Military Academy on May 4, the team would split its final two games of the regular season to finish the campaign with a 4-6 record.
“They’ve done a really good job of learning how to win,” Coupe said. “Obviously we haven’t won every match and we didn’t expect to win any match really this year to be blunt. The fact we’re getting any wins this year and match wins is great.”
The team will now enter its first postseason competition as it prepares to face off against St. Mark’s High School in the Delaware Boys Volleyball Coaches Association Playoffs on May 12. With their impending postseason debut coming up fast, the Vikings are excited to enter the new terrain.
“ The chance of winning a match is huge because it creates interest for everyone in our community. Hopefully that sixth or seventh grader that sees the amount of fun our guys are having on the court makes them consider ‘Hey you know what maybe volleyball is a sport I want to try out,’” Coupe said. “The impact it could potentially have on the younger kids is what would most excite me because that would mean we would garner more support and more interest in the sport and that is what will really help the program survive and grow going forward.”
As its first season draws closer to the finish, Cape Henlopen can look back on its inaugural boys volleyball campaign with a sense of pride. Though it may not have started the way the Vikings hoped, they were able to turn it around and get hot just in time for the postseason.
Coupe hopes this season will be just the beginning of a successful boys volleyball program at Cape.
“The size of the team is what I want to see grow most, if we are able to next year field a JV team that would be awesome to me,” Coupe said. “This first year we took a modified, slightly-shortened schedule based on it being our first year we didn’t want to overwhelm the athletes, but now that we have had a year experience under our belt I would love to see our schedule grow. … The opportunity to grow in terms of team size and in the toughness of our schedule is something I am looking forward to.”
With more time to work together and more experience coming down the line, expect Coupe and the Vikings to be a team on the rise in the coming years.
