MOULTRIE — The Colquitt County volleyball team will honor its seniors on Thursday before its matches against Ware County and Tift County

The five girls have just one season playing for new coach Jessica Cohen.

Colquitt began playing volleyball in 2017 and has not yet posted a winning record.

The Lady Packers were close last year, going 13-14 in the second of Julia Okongwu’s two-year term as the team’s coach.

Cohen has seen improvement this season and gives much of the credit to Okongwu, who left to take a head coaching job in Fulton County.

“She did a good job of getting the athletes we really need,” Cohen said Monday as the Lady Packers prepared to travel to meet Thomas County Central on Tuesday.

“We needed that athleticism and girls who are willing to put in the time to learn.”

The improvement was evident when the Lady Packers got off to an 8-1 start.

Colquitt later dropped its first two Region 1-7A matches to Lowndes and Valdosta and Cohen said she saw a couple of her players get down mentally after an early lead against the Vikettes slipped away.

But Cohen said she believes her team can make some noise in the region this season.

“We can do it,” she said. “They just have to keep the right mentality.

“We are not the biggest, the strongest or the most skilled.

We just have to go out and give 110 percent every time.”

Cohen said she has encouraged her girls not to be overly concerned about the team on the other side of the net.

“I don’t want us to have any preconceived ideas about who we are playing,” she said. “In high school, every year each team is different.”

None of the Lady Packers have the experience Cohen had by the time she began performing on the Etowah varsity team as a freshman.

She began playing as a 6-year-old and grew in the game while also competing on club teams.

Her high school and club coaches had her prepared to compete at the next level and she received a scholarship to play at Kennesaw State, where she again started for four years.

And even before she graduated earlier this year she knew she wanted to continue to be involved with the sport.

“It had been my dream to teach elementary school and coach high school ball,” she said.

She got a teaching position at Doerun Elementary and was originally hired to work as Okongwu’s assistant.

But when Okongwu left, Cohen agreed to become the head coach.

Colquitt County athletic director Cleve Edwards has been impressed with her knowledge of the game and her work ethic.

She came to Moultrie in the first week in June and has beem working diligently with the Lady Packers ever since.

“We hit the ground running,” she said of her team. “I have seen monumental improvement since then.”

The seniors who will be honored on Thursday are veterans Maycee Lowery, Ava Dickens, Bri Smith and Takiya Tuff, who was a first-team All-Region 1-7A selection last year.

Autumn Hammock, who played on the junior varsity team this year and who also will graduate next spring, also will be honored.

Cohen also is looking forward to Thursday because she will have one of her biggest fans in the stands.

Her father has been traveling down to Moultrie each Thursday that the team has played to catch the Lady Packers and, of course, his daughter.