Behind dynamic coach, Lehman gets off to a lightning fast start

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When George Montilla was first introduced to Sovanny Ebbesen, his new volleyball coach at Lehman, he was immediately impressed.

“When we first met her we all read her bio and we were like, ‘Wow, she’s been playing volleyball longer than almost all of us have been alive,” said Montilla, a sophomore for the Lightning. “Volleyball is in her veins.”

Yes, Ebbesen has had a long and successful relationship with the sport. She was a two-year captain and star of her North Pole High School team back in Alaska before starring at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. She then embarked on a coaching career that saw her lead Lathrop High School in Fairbanks to a 112-29 record and four regional championships in six seasons. All of that before moving on to the college coaching ranks at Williston State in North Dakota last year before arriving at Lehman.

Now that love of the game, that volleyball-lifer mentality, has begun to seep into Ebbesen’s players, and because of it, the Lehman volleyball program is most definitely on the upswing.

Last week in their latest outing, the Lightning — 8-18 last season — took down John Jay in straight sets, 25-16, 26-24, and 25-12, to post their 10th win of the season. The Lightning also stands at 4-1 in the City University of New York Athletic Conference, and sit just a half game out of second place. It’s been quite the turnaround season so far.

“I think progression-wise we’re getting there week by week,” Ebbesen said. “We’re building up to something, but I’m very happy so far.”

The Lightning’s season got off to a bumpy start when they opened the year going 2-6 in their first eight contests. And while it would be no surprise to see a team struggle early under a new coach, Ebbesen would not use that as an excuse.

“That was tough to start out that way,” Ebbesen said. “A lot of it was we’re not the tallest team. We don’t have 6-5 guys out there.

“But we do have a lot of skilled players who have played sports for a while, and most of the early losses we had were pretty tight losses. But I’m pretty happy with their play. They’re just getting better and better.”

The victory over John Jay gave Lehman its eighth win in its last 11 games as Ebbesen sees the Lightning slowly building its own identity.

“We’re building ball control, that’s our biggest asset,” Ebbesen said. “We’re No. 1 in the conference for digs and defense. That’s our asset, so we’re going with that. But we need to have a little bit more variety in our offense. That’s what we’re working on.”

Montilla, who was not part of Lehman’s team last year, said there was a little “getting-to-know” process early in the season, and that now he sees the Lightning as a program on the rise.

“We had new players so we had to gel, a new coach so we had to learn a new format that the coach likes, and we were also playing some pretty highly-ranked teams from different conferences early in the season,” Montilla said. “We lost a lot, but we were close in a lot of those matches and that helped us mature as a group.”

So what has been one of the main things Montilla and his teammates have learned from Ebbesen? It’s about loving what you do.

“Volleyball is something that she knows and loves, but what we also like about her is that she lets us be ourselves,” Montilla said. “We do have to play in her system, but she let’s us enjoy the game. She’s strict to a certain point, but she allows us to go out there and just love playing the game of volleyball.”

Ebbesen is not predicting a playoff run in her first season, choosing instead to stay focused on improving the team day to day, practice by practice, as the regular season dwindles down to its final five games. Lehman’s next match will be with York Thursday night at the Apex.

“These guys are great people and they’ve known each other for quite a long period of time,” Ebbesen said. “It’s just a little bit of work to get them to focus as far as not so much being friends with each other, but being more professional about things. They’re starting to come together that way.”

Montilla, though, has no qualms about proclaiming Lehman as a team destined for the postseason.

“This is most definitely a playoff team,” Montilla said. “If we win our last (three) conference games, we’ll finish second in the conference. If we lose one or two, it might bump us down a little bit but I think we’ll still make the playoffs. Just instead of getting a bye we’d have to play in the quarterfinals. 

“But we are definitely a playoff team.”

George Montilla, Sovanny Ebbesen, Lehman, North Pole High School, Alaska-Fairbanks, Lathrop High School, Williston State, North Dakota, City University of New York Athletic Conference, Sean Brennan,

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