Maria Aikins is taking over the Allen Community College volleyball team this fall as its new head coach.
She brings a vast amount of experience to Allen after serving as the assistant coach at Hutchinson Community College and earlier as Hutchinson High’s volleyball coach. She was hired at Allen on July 1.
Aikins is originally from Salina and was an All-State player at Salina Central High.
“I’m a big believer in being a relationships coach, coaching is a big passion for me,” said Aikins. “I think inspiring young women to be confident individuals is huge and getting to know them as a person is important because character matters.”
The Lady Red Devils return seven sophomores and carry eight more freshmen on the squad this season. Those returners will be led by Teryn Farley, Abby Altic, Nadia Gallegos, Lexi DeWeese and Veronica Agostini.
“Walking in the gym, everything is a clean slate,” said Aikins. “A lot of the sophomores probably got a lot of playing time as freshmen but for me it’s a new system and it’s figuring out what I want to run, what our offense and defense will look like and how we can be better matched against our opponents. We want to have success and make the playoffs.”
Aikins replaces former head coach Whitney Shaw. The freshmen class of eight players were recruited by Shaw.
The freshmen standouts for Allen through practice so far have been Chloe Vargas from Texas and Isabella Simione from Brazil.
Last season, the Lady Red Devils finished with a 16-13 winning record and earned a 5-4 mark on the road. One of the highlights of the season included winning eight-of-10 matches from the end of August through the end of September, sweeping Labette Community College.
Allen had its most recent team success in the fall of 2019 when the team went 19-13.
“I had heard of Allen. I played in the conference but I was at the Division I level at Cloud County,” said Aikins. “I had the familiarity and my husband grew up in the area so it was easy and comfortable to make that switch over.”
The serving line will prove to be valuable for the Lady Red Devils with a number of strong servers and not as much height up front. Serving hard and making big hits from all around the floor will be important with a unit that lacks height.
“The biggest thing will be controlling the tempo through the serving lines we have and defense,” Aikins said. “We have to play good defense, be able to block, be scrappy and be able to score out of serve receive, so just be consistent in the back row.”
Aikins comes from a winning culture that she hopes to bring to Allen’s program. Aikins believes in growing skills and hustling every day in the gym.
Aikins’ coaching style is rigorous, insisting on three practices a day.
