The St. Regis Lady Tigers have spent the past week sharpening their claws and getting ready for the coming season.

“They tend to work well together already,” said Lady Tigers’ Head Coach Cindy Feasel.

Feasel, who has been coaching the Lady Tigers for 15 years, said that the Lady Tigers will have 14 girls for their volleyball team when school starts but only seven will be allowed to compete at their first game Friday.

Feasel said that regulations say that a player has to have attended at least 10 practices to compete in a match and only seven of the Lady Tigers will have completed that many practices by the time they take off for Drummond for their first game Friday.

“That’s just a safety rule to make sure the girls are properly conditioned,” Feasel said.

So far Feasel said that they have spent their practices trying to run over basics and build the skills the team will need for the rest of the season.

“All of our skills have to be refined quite a bit and right now it’s just trying to cover everything and get it in before your first match,” Feasel said.

Feasel said that this year the team is also very weak in their setting position because their setter of four years graduated last year.

“It you don’t have a setter it’s kind of like your quarterback, she kind of runs the show,” Feasel said.

She added that she has several prospects right now and they just need to feel out the team to see who will best fill the position of setter.

Feasel said that they won around half of their games last year and they hope to improve on thar record this time around.

“We felt pretty good about what we accomplished there,” Feasel said.

Because of a lack of interest there was no volleyball camp for the Lady Tigers this year and Feasel said that it will definitely affect how they play this season.

“I think it always affects us. It doesn’t matter whether it’s this year or whatever season it is the less time you put in of course is what you’re going to get out of your game,” Feasel said.

Despite the need for a new setter and their diminutive numbers for their first game, Feasel said she is optimistic about the season.

“I feel like this year we’re missing a few things but we’ve gotten started and there’s no real clashing or anything and it depends on how we do at our first game and what we do with our new setter anyway,” Feasel said.