BAY MINNETTE — A young but talented Baldwin County High School volleyball team will begin seeking another 6A Area 4 championship Thursday afternoon under new coach Brian Belarmino when the Lady Tigers host Satsuma in a 5:30 p.m. match in the BCHS gym.

Belarmino, who has extensive experience as both a high school and college assistant coach and with several club volleyball teams, replaces Sarah Watkins, whose 11-25 team dominated the three-team Area 4 last year. LeFlore is the other Area 4 school.

“I coached high school (teams) for … 10 or 12 years as an assistant and I coached softball and volleyball,” Belarmino said Monday afternoon before the Lady Tigers began practice. “Then I got a coaching job at (the University of West Florida) as the assistant volleyball coach there.”

He also served one year at the University of South Alabama in Mobile and one at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tenn., as an assistant volleyball coach. Belarmino also attended the University of West Florida.

“The kids that we have (at BCHS are) some great athletes,” Belarmino said. “They look pretty good (but we’ve) gotta get them into volleytball shape, get their skills up and things like that. We have some of the best athletes, I think, in the county.

While coaching club teams in the area over the past few years, Belarmino said he has seen most of the players on teams BCHS will play this year, and he feels like the Lady Tigers match up well with other Baldwin County teams and many of those in Mobile County.

“It’s just a matter of getting up to speed in the way I want to do things,” Belarmino said.

The Lady Tigers will be young again but a little bit more experienced since quite a few undergraduates saw playing time last year for coach Sarah Watkins.

“We only have two seniors, Olivia Pruitt and Cicely Williams. We have a bunch juniors (including) Meaghan Greathouse, Anna Quinley (and) Claresse Williams, and there’ll be some sophomores playing,” Belarmino said. “We’re gonna have a good core of players next year as well.”

Practices have been going well, Belarmino said.

“We started around — really going at it August first, and we’ve been up here on some Saturdays and … they’ve been doing pretty good,” Belarmino said. “A lot of it, some of it’s new to them, what we’re trying to do, but for the most part, they’re doing pretty good..

“I like to do a quick offense … run stuff out of the middle. Defense, (we) may do two or three, it just depends on the situation,” Belarmino said. “It depends on who we play and how we’re playing

Following the opener against Satsuma, Baldwin County will play Friday in Mary G. Montgomery’s tournament at the Semmes school, then travel to Mobile next Tuesday to play Area 4 rival LeFlore.

Other teams on the Lady Tigers’ non-tournaments schedule include Baldwin County foes Gulf Shores, Spanish Fort, Robertsdale, Foley and 2006 2A state champion Bayside Academy, plus Mobile Christian, St. Paul’s and McGill-Toolen of Mobile Flomaton and Florida’s Northview High. BCHS will also play in tournaments at Bayside, Niceville, Fla., and Gulf Shores.