Now Serving
Jason Hornick/News & Messenger
Brentsville volleyball player Christine Herndon has a 98.1 career serving percentage.
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By Dave Utnik
Published: October 20, 2008
From 40 feet away, Herndon can pack a wallop. Not that the point of her overhand serve is to devour an opponent — or destroy property.
Accuracy is more important than power as far as Herndon is concerned. That’s how records are set and games are won.
She takes the same approach whether she’s practicing in her yard or serving in a match for Brentsville High School.
“I just make sure my toss is really good and I try to put the ball in play,” Herndon explained. “I don’t want to let my team down. If I miss my serve it might result in us losing the game and that would be bad.”
The thing is, Herndon rarely misses.
Over the past two seasons her 98.1 career serving percentage ranks among the highest in Virginia High School League history and, prior to last night’s regular season finale at Warren County, the 5-foot, 11½-inch outside hitter had 123 consecutive serves without a miss — the fourth-longest streak by any public school player in Virginia.
“I’m very excited I’m in the record book,” Herndon said. “It’s my own thing that I can be proud of.”
A half dozen years ago, serving wasn’t even something that she liked to do. The first season she played at the boys and girls club, Herndon was the only player on her team who had to serve underhand.
“I couldn’t get it over the net overhand,” she said. “Back when I was in fifth grade my serves were way up like rainbow serves, but once I got into high school I heard we had to be able to overhand serve to be on the team and I really wanted to be on the team so I practiced so much to make it.”
Nowadays, Herndon is more likely to serve a ball out of bounds rather than in the net. But those instances are rare. She was successful on 197 of 202 attempts as a junior and has missed only four times in 267 chances this fall. In fact, Herndon put together a streak of 113 successful serves that spanned the final four matches of 2007 and the first five of 2008.
“Hopefully other players on the team will look at this and realize it can be done,” Brentsville coach Bill Lynn said.
Serving accuracy is the foundation of Lynn’s coaching strategy. In the days when he was serving as an assistant, he devised a chart that details not only percentages and the number of aces, but also whether a player tends to miss with a long serve, a wide serve or one into the net.
Herndon reads them over after every match like a teen magazine and then she goes out to the family’s shed and pounds more balls into the wooden door or over the net set up in the back yard.
“It’s a lot of pressure. Every time we have a game I’m so happy when I don’t miss a serve,” she said. “When I miss a serve it’s not a good day. I don’t like it at all. ”
The season has been filled with far more good days than bad. In addition to the 119 kills she has at outside hitter, Herndon broke the school and county record of 109 consecutive serves without a miss that she established a year ago.
On Thursday, in the opening round of the Northwestern District Tournament, Herndon will be the first Tiger to serve. She’ll toss the ball softly in the air, making sure that it reaches just the right height, and then snap her wrist as if she was trying to rip another piece of wood out of the shed.
“Every time I go back to serve, my heart is racing,” she said. I’m hoping to get it in and it goes in. I’ve got to do it. I’ve gone this far. Why stop now?”
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