Farmersville senior Jady’n Kirby hits the ball over the net during team tryouts last Friday. Photo by Oladipo Awowale / C&S Media
By David Wolman
Before the Farmersville volleyball team began summer workouts, head coach Arian May added a new role to her day-to-day responsibilities: mother.
May gave birth to her first child—a son, Ripken, who Arian and her husband, Landon, named after 2007 National Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Cal Ripken Jr.—in April. She was placed on maternity leave earlier this year but returned to the team during the summer, which gave her more than enough time to prepare for the first day of fall practice.
“We are adjusting, obviously, but I’ve still been coming to summer workouts up here with the girls,” she said. “But he’s great. He’s ready to come here and cheer on the volleyball team.”
Being a first-time mother hasn’t been the only change for May.
Her volleyball team had to adjust to a new strength and conditioning coach.
Farmersville High School hired Adrian Briones as its new strength and conditioning coach for the upcoming school year.
May said that Briones had done a great job working with the volleyball players. He began by teaching the fundamentals of using the weight room and explained to them his approach of using the weight room.
His caring nature for student-athletes caught on quickly with the volleyball team.
“He’s a great person,” May said. “He’s someone who seems to really care about the girls, and I think that he’s got them to buy in because it seems like he really cares about them. He’s supported us well. I could imagine that I’m going to see him at a lot of volleyball games.”
Preparation for the new season began a few days earlier than in previous years.
The University Interscholastic League voted earlier this year to move the first day of high school volleyball practice up three days to give coaches much needed additional time for tryouts and preparation for the start of the season. Two-a-days, including tryouts, in previous seasons were held Mondays. However, this year, tryouts were moved up three days to Friday, Aug. 1.
May is in favor of the new rule.
“I like this setup better,” she said. “Obviously, we had to come in Saturday, which I’m sure everyone has to come in on Saturday, but that gives us the extra opportunity to focus on the tryouts and announce teams last Saturday. This allows us to focus on our teams this week.”
Farmersville comes into the 2025 season with high expectations. As the Lady Farmers seek a 12th consecutive playoff appearance, May feels confident about the team’s chances to contend for the District 13-4A title, especially given the amount of previous varsity experience they have on their roster. Farmersville is expected to return the bulk of its varsity players from last season, which will be led by a talented junior class, including the team leader in kills from a year ago, junior Peighton Purser, junior utility Rylie Cottongame, and junior libero Isabella Lopez.
Lopez will take on a bigger role this year after Farmersville graduated its vocal leader, graduate Bella Holland, who set the school record for most digs in a season with 507.
But Lopez is one of several players who have stepped into a leadership role.
“It’s still a little up in the air,” May said. “We have girls returning from our leadership team, which is Alexia Hernandez and Rylie Cottongame. Rylie is a great role model leader. She models what needs to be done on the court. She does what she’s supposed to. She’s good at talking to the girls on the side. Alexia is the more vocal one. But we’ll also be going through the captain selection process. Peighton Purser will also be vocal on the court.”
Farmersville begins its quest for another playoff berth Tuesday, Aug. 12 at Pottsboro. The first home match of the season for the Lady Farmers will take place Tuesday, Aug. 19, when they welcome the Edgewood Lady Bulldogs to Farmersville Arena.
For more on this story see the Aug. 7, 2025 print, or digital edition of The Farmersville Times. Subscribe today and support local journalism in your community.
0 Comments