Bourne Volleyball Cultivates 11 Years Of Success

BOURNE- Bethany Ashworth, Meghan Donovan, and Julia Amaral could give a powerful academic lecture on The Winner Within, a book by basketball coach Pat Riley. As tri-captains of Bourne’s varsity girls’ volleyball team, they are required by Head Coach Tim Acton to read the book each fall. Ashworth’s copy is dog-eared and filled with highlighter markings, but she rarely needs to consult it—she can cite the book, chapter and verse.
Midway through the volleyball season, one passage from Riley’s book springs to Ashworth’s mind: “Success has ruined many a man.”
For 11 years and counting, success has failed to ruin Bourne’s volleyball program. The Lady Canalmen reached the state championship match in seven of the last nine seasons. Three of those years—2000, 2002 and 2004—Bourne won the state title. The run of success that began under former Head Coach David Moore continued when Tim Acton took over in 2003.
The Lady Canalmen succeed even as they face determined opponents who consider Bourne the match of the year. They succeed after key seniors graduate from the program. The graduates succeed on women’s volleyball programs in college. It happens every year, and it is happening again this year. 

Bourne High School sophomore Sarah Hannon digs the ball in a recent match. Hannon is part of a strong core of young players ready to take the team into the future. DON PARKINSON/ENTERPRISE

“They expect a lot of themselves, and I think that’s why they came out for it,” said Coach Acton. “They excel everywhere…They expect to be pushed.”
This extends beyond the volleyball court. Before the Lady Canalmen’s home match against Case on September 26, the team received the American Volleyball Coaches Association’s Academic Award for the second straight year. Bourne was one of 128 high school teams nationwide to receive the award, which goes only to teams that maintain a cumulative 3.30 grade-point average throughout the academic year. 
Attending the Case match were nearly two dozen Bourne football players in uniform. They yelled “Boom!” on every Bourne serve, and howled at the Lady Canalmen’s kills. One of them, junior Rob Collett, said he attends as many volleyball matches as he can. “Everyone in here knows about the success of the team,” Collett said.
Beyond the athletic element of volleyball, Bourne’s program goes to great lengths to foster a close-knit group of players. “We’re always together. Everything we do is team-oriented,” Amaral said. 
“We see each other and slap each other on the back,” said Ashworth. “It’s a little disgusting how much time we spend together.”
“There’s not too much social life during the volleyball season,” Donovan said.
In addition to talks and reports on The Winner Within, Bourne players have team discussions on a regular basis through the season. Lauryn McGonagle, a Bourne ’07 graduate who now plays volleyball as a sophomore at St. Anselm College in Hanover, N.H., said this helped create a winning atmosphere. “By talking so much as a team, that helped us bond together.…The closeness of the girls made it really successful,” McGonagle said. 
This helps newcomers feel like they belong right away. Every varsity player is assigned a “little sister” from among the program’s younger players. The little sister may get a bottle of Gatorade with an inspirational message taped to it. Bourne’s gym is lined with posters bearing players’ names and motivational messages, all made by the varsity players. 
Freshman Tara Lyons took up the sport as a seventh grader, when she joined the Pilgrim Junior Olympic Volleyball Club. This year, she made varsity as a freshman.
“It’s just the best thing that’s ever happened to me. There’s just so much encouragement and support from everybody,” Lyons said. “Before we have a game, we all have talks and motivate each other.”
In Bourne volleyball practices, the word “can’t” is strictly forbidden. “We call it ‘the four-letter word,’” Coach Acton said.
It is a motivational atmosphere, which Coach Acton insists is player-generated. He does not have a “drill sergeant” coaching style, but strongly emphasizes player fitness. The first half of Bourne’s three-hour practices consists entirely of conditioning. “A lot of people think volleyball doesn’t require stamina,” Coach Action said, but all the four- and five-game matches he’s seen over the years convince him otherwise. Fit teams have a major advantage late in long matches.  
Coach Acton began coaching volleyball in 1989 as an assistant to Tom Turco with the Barnstable High School girls’ volleyball team. “We both had the same philosophy of what we wanted to do with a volleyball program,” Coach Acton said. Under Coach Turco, Barnstable has since won 11 state championships.
Like Barnstable, Bourne’s program benefits from a coaching staff with a shared philosophy.  Junior varsity Coach Annemarie Souza has been coaching the Lady Canalmen for 15 years, and she is a 1990 Bourne graduate, who was a two-year captain on the volleyball team. She is director of the Pilgrim Junior Olympic Volleyball Club, and has known many Bourne players for years. “She was going to hunt me down if I didn’t play volleyball,” Ashworth joked. 
Freshman Coach James Moore has also coached with the Pilgrim Club and Cape Cod Juniors.  He and Coach Souza are also varsity assistant coaches. “They’re just great. Either one of them could go elsewhere and be a varsity coach,” said Coach Acton. “I’m just blessed.”
Half of Bourne’s varsity players had experience playing volleyball prior to high school, Coach Acton said. Tri-captains Ashworth and Amaral both played in their middle school years, while Donovan played it for the first time when she went out for the team as a freshman.  
“It’s an addictive sport…once you play it right,” Coach Acton said. “It’s a difficult game to learn. The learning curve is flat, and then it goes through the roof.”
Bourne gives the players the volleyball skills they need to thrive. Eight alums of the Lady Canalmen program are currently playing in college. But Coach Acton believes that talent alone would not guarantee a winning team each year. “Just because you stick a bunch of people on the volleyball court, doesn’t justify them as a team,” he said.
Riley has similar thoughts in The Winner Within, and it made an impression on the tri-captains. “You have to give your selves up,” Donovan quoted from Riley’s book. “People underestimate the power of the team.”
Thus Ashworth, for example, embraces the setter’s role. In football terms, a volleyball setter has the leadership responsibilities of a quarterback but the near-invisible importance of a lineman. Two years ago, Ashworth was honorable mention on prepvolleyball.com’s Frosh 59, a list of the nation’s top freshman varsity volleyball players. Despite the national acclaim, Ashworth will rarely make the kill that draws the cheers. Instead, she sets them up. “Defense wins state championships; offense sells tickets,” Ashworth said with a laugh.  
For the first two games of Bourne’s match against Case, the Lady Canalmen had their hands full. The final result was the usual 3-0 win for Bourne, but the Lady Canalmen had to fight through two tight games before Case faded away in the third. Fired-up opposition is the norm for Bourne. “Bourne’s the one they always go after,” Coach Acton said. “You’ll make a season by beating Bourne.”
Being a perpetual target is one of the pressures inherent in playing for a powerhouse program.  Bourne players have dealt with it for years. “I did feel that pressure in a way,” said McGonagle at St. Anselm, adding that Acton helped transform the pressure into inspiration. “He had so much confidence that no matter who was on the team, we were going to win.”
Coach Acton believes that the team’s performance in recent years provides more motivation than pressure.  “Once you instill it, it takes on a life of its own, and the kids begin to expect it from each other,” Acton said. “They’re used to the pressure of being good; they know what it takes; and I think they thrive in it.”
Bourne’s current players also consider themselves underdogs, despite a 12-0 record.  Ashworth pointed to the team’s third-place ranking in one area poll, and the shortage of height on this year’s squad. “We’re not an intimidating-looking team,” she said. 
Before playoffs begin this year, the players will continue their tradition of watching “Miracle,” the movie about the 1980 US men’s Olympic hockey team. Last month, nine of the Bourne players made replica jerseys of the Olympic team that they wore to school. Coach Acton is also inspired by the 1980 hockey team—his 2004 state championship ring is engraved with the word “Miracle” on the backside. 
Whether favorites or underdogs, Bourne’s players will stay confident and even-keel throughout the season. They all played for the 2006 and ’07 state finalists, and their program keeps them mentally and physically ready for a return to the championship match. “I feel like if we went to the finals again…it wouldn’t be a big deal,” Amaral said. “We never get too high; we never get too low.”