Restock, reload, revamp and repeat.

    This seems to be the formula for the Century High School volleyball team each year and coming off its second straight 4A state championship, the squad is primed to do it all over again.

    This season, however, the Diamondbacks have a different look and feel to them.

    Gone is the senior leadership of Jenna Ellis and Brea Mitchell. A team that was young last year remains young with just three seniors on the roster — Jennie Murrillo, Jamie Miller and Pocatello transfer Ann Clappier.

    “This year is going to be very different,” said head coach Pauline Thiros. “The Diamondbacks are just going to look a lot different, but still be very strong. I’m excited to see how far we can go.”

    What has changed for Century?

    “We’re going to be a much better blocking team,” Thiros said. “We’re strong in five positions blocking this year whereas last year we were strong in maybe one. That’s the big difference.”

    Bringing in Clappier immediately boosts the Diamondbacks’ blocking ability. The 6-foot-1 athlete is a tremendous presence in the middle.

    “She brings a dimension to our blocking that we’ve never had before,” Thiros said.

    The team that walked off the court in Post Falls in Oct. of 2011 with its second consecutive state title is not the same one that has been pounding the hardwood at Century for the past week. The Diamondbacks must mesh and become a team in order to climb the 4A mountain once again.

    “We need to come closer just like we were last year,” said sophomore libero Jacque Cuttlers. “Instead of being individuals we need to be a team.”

    The most crucial area to address will be replacing the strong leadership of Jenna Ellis and Mitchell.

    “Replacing those two, two of the strongest players on our team, will be hard,” said sophomore Kayla Ellis, Jenna’s sister. “We’re young, but we were young last year. We’ve been training and I think we will be able to pull it off.”

    Kayla says that she along with Sami Paris and Clappier were voted as team captains and that they will step up and into the role of leaders.

    “Kayla has been a great leader, “Thiros said. “She’s kind of been preparing for that. She’s been thinking about this year a lot longer than some because she’s been preparing for Jenna to leave for a couple of years now. She knew she would be in this position.”

    Century is preparing for the rigors and hardships that a full high school season can bring with just its first week of practice. The intensity during a session is palpable.

    “We train for an hour and a half we play for almost an hour every day in controlled, intense situations where I put a lot of pressure on them as a team,” Thiros said. “I think that as much time as we spend playing and preparing for situations that I see coming in a game, they really become predictable to each other. When we run those scenarios enough, it just helps them come together as a team. The only difference between us and other teams in the way we train is I think we spend a lot more time playing.”

    The aftermath of the Diamondbacks’ “full-contact” practices can be seen in the number of players with wrapped legs and ice bags taped to various body parts. It looks rough, but the girls love it.

    “We are just training,” Cuttlers said. “It’s hard but it’s good for us.”

     “I think we needed to get some practice having other people step forward in a really tough situation,” Thiros said.

    “We’ve been working pretty hard, probably harder than ever before,” she said. “We just need more training. We needed more reps and we needed more drilling in terms of the Diamondback system for some of the new people on the team.”

    Century opens the season next Thursday, Aug. 23 against both Canyon Ridge and Twin Falls at Canyon Ridge High School. The team will also test itself at three different tournaments this year, including the Peg Peterson Invite, the Bonneville/Hillcrest Classic and a big event in Lehi, Utah called the Rocky Mountain Champions Classic on Sept. 7 and 8.

    “I’m very excited,” Thiros said. “We again set goals for ourselves this year that are pretty high. Our goal is to be in the state tournament and I feel that in a double-elimination format we can do a lot of damage.”