Bailey Antoine was a standout girls basketball player at NISH and went to on to play some college ball as well.

She knows a lot about basketball and would be an excellent coach of the game.

But Antoine is not coaching basketball at Westgate. Instead she is in her initial season as the volleyball coach and has been learning on the fly as the Lady Tigers dropped a 3-1 decision to West St, Mary Tuesday to fall to 2-7 on the season.

“We fell short today because we didn’t know how to get over adversity,” Antoine said. “Once we learn how to do that, we’ll be better.”

Antoine said her first year at the helm has been a good one so far but she knows that she has a lot of work to do with the team.

“The season has been alright but we keep on messing up on our end and that’s why we’re losing,” she said. “Once we stop making mistakes, we’ll start winning.”

While she wanted to be a coach, Antoine was not really keen at first taking on the role of a volleyball coach.

“It really wasn’t something that I wanted to do,” she said. “But coaching is what I wanted to do and I felt that I could make a difference here at Westgate.”

Antoine’s father, head football coach Ryan Antoine, was happy to see his daughter get the coaching bug.

“It’s a blessing,” Ryan Antoine said. “It’s a proud moment when you can look down and see your daughter coaching. That was something that was one of her dreams and something that she wanted to do.

“As a father, it’s been a blessing to see her doing what she wanted to do.”

But there has been a learning curve for the younger Antoine, who never played volleyball in high school, concentrating instead on basketball.

“I had to learn everything about the game,” she said. “I don’t feel like I’m there yet but I’m getting there. But there are times that I’m trying to figure out how to make it work.”

Antoine has thrown herself into learning the game and has done a remarkable job of picking up some of the nuances of the sport but there are still some things that she hasn’t fully grasped yet.

“The biggest thing I had to learn was that this is no basketball,” Antoine said. “Things are different. This is a whole different ball game. This is not as fast as basketball is and I have to sit back and learn this game because I’ve been playing basketball for 15 years. I had the talent and it came naturally and this doesn’t come naturally at all.”

But she’s committed to Westgate and the girls and the program.

“This is home for me,” she said. “This is where I want to be doing what I want to do.”