Getting a full season in last year has Warren Central’s volleyball program anticipating bigger things in 2012.

An experienced group of four senior starters helped the Lady Vikes split eight of their early-season matches. WC went 9-11 last year under coach Greg Head and are currently 4-4 going into a pair of home matches with Madison Central and Vicksburg.

WC hosts Madison Central Saturday at 9 a.m. The divisional match again Vicksburg is Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.

“Things are definitely better this year,” Head said. “We have five players returning and four of those are seniors. We’ve played well so far, we just need to improve on our consistency.”

WC beat Forest Hill in straight sets Thursday 25-9, 25-13, 25-14. Seniors Taylor Willis and Shae Bracey had four kills and two blocks apiece. Brooke Kistler had eight aces on 14 serves, and Shareena Smith had six aces on 14 serves.

Willis said the recent Olympic Games in London provided a great tutorial on volleyball strategy.

“I think I watched four straight nights of it,” Willis said. “You could see first-hand on what you should be doing.”

Kistler agreed.

“Destinee Hooker was so good to watch,” Kistler said. “I’d see some things the U.S. team would do and I’d bring it to practice the next day. The biggest thing was the communication the team used and their transitions from offense to defense.”

Learning a new rotation system has aided the Lady Vikes, Head said.

“We’ve learned a new system, which uses more rotations, and because we have a year of experience, we were able to pick it up quicker,” Head said. “We were able to win some early matches against Jim Hill, Germantown and Pearl and we played Northwest Rankin three close sets.”