Rhonda DeRuiter's résumé includes eight Central Section volleyball titles as a coach and three more as a player.

But never has DeRuiter had to work as hard at finding the winning combination as she did this season, her fifth at Clovis West High that culminated in a second straight Division I championship.

"I try and take every season as it comes, take the girls I have and make the best team and best strategy out of what I've got," said DeRuiter, The Bee's Coach of the Year for the second straight season.

"That was evident this season. Without our best hitter back, we had to make a new plan. And that plan didn't work. We were on about plan E by the time we got to the Valley finals. The girls did a good job of adjusting."

DeRuiter and her staff — lead assistant Travis Herb and junior varsity coach Peter Allen — were left scrambling from the beginning as they tried to replace 75% of the team's offense from 2008. Leading returning hitter Lyndsie Petersen missed more than half of the season and was limited after her return because of a shoulder injury. Clovis West's two other top hitters from the previous season — co-Bee Players of the Year Mikayla Pierce and Lauren Albertson — graduated.

So they tried setter Melody Mandelbaum as a primary hitter before realizing that wasn't going to work. They shifted another setter, Shannon Leary, to outside hitter, where she blossomed. They added contributors from the junior varsity in Ashley Grootendorst and Lauren Meador.

In all, DeRuiter said Clovis West used 10 different combinations on the court either in practice or in matches.

"We left no stone unturned," DeRuiter said. "We went through a bunch of different scenarios and tried to figure out who was best where and why. I'm sure it was a difficult year on a lot of the girls, playing one day and not another. Girls could have thrown off the team's togetherness with bad attitudes, having opportunities and then not, but they didn't. We had a good time together and it showed."

After dropping two Tri-River Athletic Conference matches to rival Buchanan, all the changes paid off in the postseason, which saw the second-seeded Golden Eagles down the top-seeded Bears 27-25, 27-25, 16-25, 25-16 for the school's section section title.

Clovis West also won a first-round Southern California Regional for the second straight year before bowing out against Dos Pueblos-Goleta.

"She really knew how to push us and get the most out of us," Mandelbaum said of DeRuiter. "She knew what to do in the right situations."