By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SALEM, Ore.–  The time off has really reminded Dallas’ Bailey Savage how much she loves the sport of Volleyball.

Coming off a six-week club season Savage, who transferred back to Dallas after spending the last two years at 1A Perrydale, continued to put in work preparing for an early entry to Eastern Oregon University this February after she graduates from Dallas in January.

Monday marked the first day of the first session of the NPJ’s four-on-four league at The Hoop, going on for the next few weeks before another session starts up at the end of September.  The work comes during a time, if not for the Coronavirus Pandemic pushing the Volleyball season to the March-April timetable, she would be with the Dragon Volleyball program helping the squad out in some form.

“I’m really upset that we don’t have a season, a Senior season.  I’m really excited for Eastern Oregon, I love the girls, I’ve already met a couple of them and I’m so excited to start there,” said Savage, who was Honorable Mention last season with the 1A Pirates after battling through an ankle injury during the season.  “I would be playing with Dallas, it would be a fun Senior season but I’m just ready to go to college.”

Savage joins older sister Tristan, a 2017 Dallas-grad, to play at the collegiate level.  The older Savage is a redshirt sophomore at UCLA as the younger in Bailey will be joining a Mountaineer program that went 31-5 in 2019 and went 2-2 in the NAIA National Tournament in Sioux City, Iowa.

The break itself, initially thought to last a month had turned longer, putting a damper on Savage’s club season as her Salem 17 National team earned a GJNC bid; but knowing too there are bigger things still ahead for the soon-to-be High School-graduate ahead of her.

“It was upsetting, but I felt like it was nice reminder of how much Volleyball means to me and how I want to work harder to improve myself,” starts Savage.

Ever since the gyms opened back up, she’s been doing whatever she can to stay involved and work on the basics with private workouts, open gyms and as much stuff with NPJ as she can to sharpen up the finer details of her game.

“Just getting back into basics,” Savage said.  “I’ve started a lot with basics (like) getting my form right again, getting everything back and I feel like I’m just getting back to the level of play I was at.  But I feel like I’m improving pretty well.  My body feels good, everything is good.”