Players from Loreauville Elementary and Belle Place Elementary celebrate the end of a fantastic school league season. 

In front of a packed crowd at the Cyr Gates Community Center, the Belle Place Elementary School volleyball team battled a new challenger in the NIRD School League, Loreauville Elementary.

In the team’s first season, they surprised everyone with their performances, winning six games in a row and defeating BPE 2-0 in the league’s championship game on Wednesday.

Coach Brad Clifton, who stepped in when head coach Jacob Munnerlyn had to travel to Florida to help with hurricane relief efforts, said that having a volleyball team will provide athletes in Loreauville with more options.

“It feels pretty good,” he said about the win. “It’s a little nerve-wracking because the actual coach is not here and he’s the one who put this together. He set the tone for them this season. We were just trying to find something to offer the girls, a new sport in Loreauville. We’ve done some things with soccer and now volleyball, we just want to give them opportunities and let them be a part of things like this. There’s such a team-building aspect to this sport because you have to count on the person next to you, you can’t do it yourself.”

As for whether the ultimate goal is to build a high school volleyball team in Loreauville, Clifton said “absolutely.”

“Our little 2A school is quickly becoming a 3A school, so we feel like we have to have options for the kids, especially since girls athletics sometimes gets left behind. Hopefully we can continue with the success and keep teaching them the game.”

Program Director Krystal Boyance said that the turn out for the school league this season was phenomenal.

“It is awesome. For us coming back from COVID to see this is awesome. When I started as Program Coordinator, the volleyball program had been decreasing in popularity. We started talking about how we could get the kids back and some were skeptical about bringing volleyball back. We started back up with 6 teams, and this year we have 15 teams, which is wild.”

Boyance said that Loreauville’s path to the championship started with a coach who relied on internet tutorials to learn the game.

“Loreauville’s coach went on YouTube and found out how to coach volleyball,” she explained. “They never had a team, but they went out here and swept the league, I mean what kind of story is that? I hear it from the coaches, the girls that play here go and try out for their middle school teams and they make it, so this is the stepping stone to play at that level.”

Boyance said that the school league’s success this season can be traced back to participation in other NIRD programs throughout the year.

“It’s a great thing, the parents are coming out and it was standing room only every night,” she said of the turnout this season. “I’m glad that the parents and kids are coming back. When they come in for school league, they also end up coming in for other things. Half of the girls that were in the school league actually came for the summer volleyball camp and went back to school and got the teams together.”

For anyone interested in learning more about the programs that are offered by NIRD, visit them on Facebook at Nird Parksandrecreation or call Park Director Heather Dominique at (337) 369-2337.

Registration for the school league basketball season is happening now.