South Range plans outdoor volleyball matches
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GREENFORD -- Area volleyball teams will launch the new season in the great outdoors.
South Range High School will host “The Battle on Turf” slated for Saturday, Aug. 15 at the Rominger Athletic Complex. The series of 10 pre-season matches held by the Mahoning Valley Volleyball Officials Association will begin at 10 a.m.
South Range volleyball coach T.J. Irons said the idea for the outdoor matches germinated after seeing big college volleyball programs like Nebraska and some Ohio-based high schools hold matches in football stadiums.
“Our team talked about it and my assistant coach and I talked about how cool it would be if we could maybe give it a shot,” Irons said. “We pitched it to the girls and they were in. We pitched it to the parents and they were in. We’ve had so much support from everybody because it’s such a cool thing.”
The slate will open with Beaver Local and Lakeview at 10 a.m. Other two-game matches include Mineral Ridge-Hubbard (11 a.m.), Girard-Jackson-Milton (noon), Struthers-McDonald (1 p.m.), Lowellville-East Palestine (2 p.m.), Howland-Columbiana (3 p.m.), Canfield-Poland (4 p.m.), Austintown-Crestview (5 p.m.), Boardman-East Liverpool (6 p.m.) and South Range-Campbell (7 p.m.).
Irons said he didn’t even have to reach out to area volleyball programs to fill the slate. It all came by word of mouth.
“It was almost too easy to be honest,” Irons said. “That’s something you kind of feel bad about because I’d like to invite as many as possible but we had to put a limit on it. We started talking about it and other people started talking about it and they said if you do it we’re in.”
South Range’s event will be the first time outdoor volleyball will have been tried in this area. Cuyahoga Falls Walsh Jesuit hosted a regular season outdoor volleyball match in 2025 at its football stadium. The match was played with the sun low on the horizon and the court was on the 50-yard-line overlapping the sideline and some of the running track around the field. Walsh Jesuit said they got the idea from Newark who also hosted a match outdoors.
“We reached out to Walsh Jesuit to see if we could use the same company they used for the court rental but it didn’t quite work out for us,” Irons said. “I kept looking and it turns out there is a guy up in Michigan who rents the court out. He puts the whole court and subfloor in a trailer and all you have to do is get someone to pick it up. You bring it to your field and set it up and then you have to make sure you get it back.”
Irons said he didn’t want to commit to a regular season match quite yet because he didn’t know how the conditions would work for such an event. As it is he said there are details to still be worked out.
The Mahoning Valley Volleyball Officials Association traditionally holds a preview with between six to eight teams every year at an area high school, so South Range thought it might be a good idea to use the outdoor event as the preview. Irons said Raider assistant coach Kalie Luklan worked matches at Youngstown State and brought the idea up to officials there. They were soon on board.
With the match being outdoors in the height of summer, Irons knows there will be challenges. He said sunglasses will be allowed to be worn since it is a preseason event. He said he will also permit each school to bring their junior high teams so they can sit around the edges of the court to chase balls that get away. In case of rain, the matches will be moved to Sunday. If the event can’t be held outdoors on Sunday, it will be moved inside to the South Range gym. Irons said the court will not have to be taken down and reassembled if it rains. If only some of the matches can be played, Irons said he’s hoping teams will come back on Sunday to finish.
If the schedule goes as planned no matches will be held under the lights, but Irons said he’s like to give it a shot.
“Our match goes off at 7 o’clock so we’re getting close to there,” Irons said. “I’m a little nervous about dew. You never know this time of year. Sometimes there’s dew, sometimes there is not. We’d like to have the lights on and have that atmosphere, but I don’t know if we can wait until 8 or 9 o’clock because it might get a little slick with the dew.”
Admission is $8 for adults and $5 for students. South Range boosters will be running concession stands and Soup City Designs will have special apparel on sale.