La Grange Volleyball Poised to Begin a New Chapter

When the La Grange varsity volleyball team begins its season Tuesday at 6 p.m. in Weimar it will do so with a new head coach for the first time in seven years.

Leslie Coltrain, who led the Lady Leps to lots of success on the court, (including three consecutive co-district titles from 2020-2022) left to take the head volleyball job at China Spring.

In her place is Ryan O’Neal, who has no intention of leading the volleyball team as long as Coltrain.

In fact, O’Neal expects this to be his first and last year coaching the Lady Leps volleyball team, but plans to make it a memorable one.

O’Neal was hired this spring as the new La Grange girls athletic coordinator and head girls basketball coach, shortly after the school also hired a volleyball coach.

But that coach ended up taking another job instead, leaving the school scrambling to make a late hire.

When the right candidate never materialized in that short window, O’Neal agreed to take the volleyball job himself – for one year, before the school goes through a more traditional hiring process next year for a new volleyball coach.

“People plan and God laughs,” O’Neal said. “I couldn’t have imagined all of this coming together a year ago.

“What drew me to this job is the character of these girls and their parents, and I really started to see that coming out by the end of the summer,” O’Neal said.

“I am fortunate to take over two programs from really good, really experienced coaches and that’s really set this group up for success this year. I can’t take credit for the roots that they established ... What I’ve found is that there are a lot of people willing to help. Coach Coltrain and Coach Golan (the outgoing girls basketball coach who is still teaching at the school) have been really helpful in the process as have both Coach Coopers (athletic director Kyle Cooper and his wife Ginger, also a LHS coach) and there’s been a lot of parent support. They want the best for their kids.”

O’Neal, a UT grad with previous coaching stops in Austin, Nacogdoches, and Katy, inherits a volleyball team that is loaded with experience. Last year’s Lady Leps went 12-28 but only graduated one senior, so almost the entire varsity roster is back.

There are five seniors – Kylie Trlicek, Carley Ulrich, Faith Greenwood, Kyla Colon and Clara Bundick.

Juniors on varsity include Kenna Lamza, Avery Griffin, Campbell Cooper, Haedyn Cooper, and Hannah Gross.

And then there’s two sophomore returnees Brion Williams and Ashtyn Smith, who both played a lot last year on varsity as freshmen.

Altogether it’s a group O’Neal is excited about.

“The skill is there,” O’Neal said. “The way we come together will determine where we end up. I got a chance to watch these girls over the summer in summer league and there were some growing pains early, but by the end of summer league the seniors were really starting to step up their leadership and we ended up finishing with a really good summer. Our communication got better, and so did our overall enthusiasm.”

If the Lady Leps work as hard as their head coach (who will jump right into basketball after volleyball’s over), good things are in store.

“It’s a mile a minute right now,” O’Neal said. “I’ve been up here until it gets dark preparing as much as I can. Without my wife (with whom he shares four kids) this job would be difficult.”

* Coming Friday, a closer look at the LHS seniors