Southern Wells has gone from one win to eight — and changing the culture in the process
By RYAN WALKER
PONETO — If you walk around Southern Wells’ famous Raider Dome, you’ll see the history of the school’s athletic accomplishments.
One side has all of the recent sectional and ACAC champions in picture frames for boys’ and girls’ basketball, cross country, girls’ golf and others. Another side has wrestling state qualifiers. The far end of the gymnasium holds banners for every sport the Raiders have won a sectional, regional, semi-state and state championship banners.
Whitney Powell and her daughter, Abbie, noticed when they moved from the Muncie area to Southern Wells in 2020 is that there are no banners for volleyball. Not a single picture, banner or mention of anything related to volleyball.
Recent history hasn’t been much better either. Southern Wells hasn’t had a winning record in a long time. Online sites like MaxPreps don’t have far enough history to show the last season that had more wins than losses.
Ever since the Powells came to town, Southern Wells has won nine games compared to 101 losses in four seasons.
Like most years, the Raiders struggled in 2023, going 1-23. It was the first year under head coach Whitney Powell, formerly the head coach at both Delta and Cowan with 22 years worth of coaching experience at the club level as well.
She took over the Southern Wells program intending to build a culture and grow the volleyball program similarly to her previous stops. She went on a mission, and perhaps just accomplished it in only a year-and-a-half.
As of Sept. 18, the Raiders are 8-8. This is the most wins the program has seen since in at least seven years. There are still nine games left in the season, not including the ACAC Tournament and the sectional games.
It’s the first time Southern Wells has had a pulse of life within the program in years.
“Over the last couple years, (the girls have) been putting in the work,” Powell said. “They were putting the work in last year. We just weren’t figuring it out quite yet, but I think they’ve started to figure it out. They’re working hard. They put the work in in the off-season, they’re putting the work in and practices, and I think they’re starting to see it pay off.”
Being a .500 team record-wise will still have its hiccups, but the Raiders are clearly a different ballclub even through their losses. Matches that they wouldn’t have been close in the past are now much tighter with more competitive efforts set by set.
The team made its arrival early this year, where, on back-to-back nights in August, the Raiders tied their win total from last season and surpassed it on the next. Those were games No. 3 and No. 4.
Notably, the team has played more inspired, with more joy, excitement and fun. It’s made volleyball a sport where players are proud to get back in the gym and practice and go into matches with a chance to win rather than an automatic loss.
But don’t just take it from a wins and losses point of view — take it from Aly Green, a senior who has endured the past five seasons with one win, two wins and five win seasons.
“There’s been so much more fun,” Green said. “I feel like the biggest difference is the mindset and mentality surrounding the team. We don’t go into games scared anymore, and we go in thinking that we’re going to win with more confidence. So that makes it a lot more fun.”
“Overall, like the goofiness of the team this year, everyone together is so funny, and it’s like such a special bond,” Green said.
“I’m really happy that Aly has stuck it out and she’s put the work in to reap the benefits from it,” Powell said. “Because now, she’s starting to see what all that hard work pays off for.”
When Powell’s family moved to Southern Wells, she wanted to get acquainted with the program and help in any way she could. She pled her case to a coach running the lower levels of the Raiders’ middle school teams, only asking to volunteer. Powell was denied.
It took a late resignation from the seventh grade coach before tryouts for Powell to garner any consideration. At first, she was still ignored, but taking it to higher-ups in the athletic building, she earned the spot with her experience being the main factor.
Powell was again coaching her daughter, running practices with an audience of Principal Kim Conner and Dustin Buecler, the athletic director at the time.
A year later, the varsity coaching position opened. Powell jumped right in on it, perhaps aided by Conner and Beucler’s prior attendance, and she was named head coach.
In the 2023 Fall Sports Preview in The News-Banner, Powell shared that her coaching style is patient, yet demanding. She said that the girls needed to learn the fundamentals and have a better understanding of the game to compete at a higher level.
Luckily, Powell only had two players graduate from her first team and allowed her to coach her group fpr more than one season. Green is the only senior on this year’s team, so the Raiders won’t be going away any time soon.
“What’s exciting to me is that we have such a core group that’s going to be back next year as well,” Powell said. “And we’re not done yet this year. Looking at our schedule, I really feel like we should be coming out positive at the end of this year, and that makes it more enjoyable for me, and more enjoyable for the players. But we’re starting to get a crowd to come to our games. We’re starting to get some of those middle school kids that are now wanting to come, and they’re admiring these high school girls. That’ll just keep building the program.”
The team’s success is attributed to the vast improvement of playing together and hard work. Freshman Abbie Powell has been the cherry on top.
She does not look like the typical 14-15-year-old playing at the varsity level for the first time. She’s the tallest member on the team and is commonly the most vocal.
In her lifetime, Abbie has grown up on the volleyball floor, watching her mom, coach from the sidelines and following along the way. She played under her mom as well as playing for some of the highest levels of club volleyball in the country.
Coach Powell shared that in the last three seasons, Abbie’s teams have seen as high as fifth place in the national tournament. The team played in Orlando for the national championships again this summer for the Chipmunks.
Coming with this perspective, she wanted to jump right in and make an impact.
“I just wanted to make this better,” Abbie said. “After seeing one win, I wanted to get more wins and I can keep contributing to everything and something that’s going to make (the team) better. Always talking to them and encouraging them rather than getting on the ground and falling asleep, and always talking to them about what they can do and how I can help them.”
In her first season so far, Abbie leads the team and the ACAC conference with 189 kills, 67 more than second place. Her hitting percentage (0.552) is top in the state regardless of class size, according to MaxPreps.
But like her mom, Abbie doesn’t just want to change the culture for just volleyball, but for all sports at Southern Wells.
When asked what they wanted to accomplish at the end of the season, both Green and Powell answered with culture-building responses rather than winning more games or a sectional championship.
“Just changing the idea of sports at Southern Wells,” Green said. “From having the mindset of, ‘Oh, they’re gonna lose,’ to a confident mindset and knowing that we can win things and I see a really bright future for the girls coming up in the next couple years, and I think it’s going to be really good and they’re going to win.”
“I want us to come out thinking that we all got a lot better this year, and we all made each other better people and better volleyball players,” Abbie said. “I think that’s really important, rather than just looking back (and saying), ‘Oh, we lost so many games,’ but we also got a lot better in the process, and we became better friends and better people.”
Before the season started, Coach Powell asked her team to write down goals. Powell left the room, and the girls wrote about the mentality of how they view not only their team, but all the athletics at Southern Wells.
The team vowed to speak positively about all sports and encourage others to hard work and enjoy the sports they play. The volleyball team, increasing its win total by eight times from last season, is an embodiment of that.
“I’m loving that they’re wanting to change the mindset of the school,” coach Powell said. “Their work ethic that they’re putting in is starting to show that mindset paying off.”
ryan@news-banner.com
