June has been a busy month for nearly every Lafayette athletic team, every team except for volleyball.

For the second summer in a row the volleyball Commodores have had a slow start to their workouts leading up to the regular season. Each time has been for a reason outside of their control. Last year it was due to the high school gym getting air conditioning installed, this year both the high school and middle school gyms have been unavailable due to improvements being made.

The high school gym is getting their court refurbished with a new design while the middle school gym is getting air conditioning installed.

“Because of that it does hamper summer growth,” Lafayette coach Clint Jordan said. “One of the things about volleyball is you need that summer growth.”

Jordan usually has a casual approach to June, having an open-gym policy where if the players are in town they can come workout but if there are vacations planned the players do not have to worry about coming in or making up missed time.

This year Jordan even shut down the June workouts. The team has begun some workouts at the Oxford Park Commission activities building with the hope of getting into their gym by sometime around July 12 or shortly after.

The volleyball team will be the first to experience the new gym floor. The basketball programs will see the most noticeable differences but there will still be some adjustment period for volleyball.

“What you get used to in volleyball is a little bit slicker court because most schools don’t redo their court, they wait to put the varnish back on it until right before basketball season,” Jordan said. “That’s when the most traffic is going to be on the court. We’re actually more used to the sliding around. Just a little, it’s not much. We have a great gym (at Lafayette) so it’s not that big of a deal.”

If Jordan is able to get his team in the gym within the next couple weeks it will give them roughly 10 days to get as acclimated as possible before leaving for camp at Florida State in late July. But the few times the Commodores can get on the floor before their season begins on August 7 will still be more time on it than each of their opponents will have.

“We redid our gym when I was coaching at Tupelo the year we won the state championship and it was a challenge,” Jordan said. “It was a home-court advantage because when you plant your foot it’s planted. It takes some time to get used to it.”