In high school sports, words like young, inexperienced, and youth are usually associated with teams that don't have the best success rate.

However, a good crop of young and talented players can jump-start a program. Sprinkle in a young and passionate coach and the recipe for success is ready to be served.The Jim Thorpe and Tamaqua volleyball programs are hoping that's what's in their future with the recent hires of 23 year-old coaches Victoria Nichols (Jim Thorpe) and Emilie Baker (Tamaqua).Both teams are coming off losing seasons in 2015 as well as missing the postseason.For Jim Thorpe, hiring Victoria Nichols seemed like a no brainer. She was a 2010 graduate of the school and also played volleyball for the Olympians. Nichols then went on to continue her academic and athletic career at Keystone College.Before accepting the Thorpe job, Nichols served as an assistant coach at Northwestern Lehigh High School."Most of us all live in small towns and word travels fast," said Nichols. "Once I knew the job was open people started to talk to me about it and it just made a lot of sense for me. I love Jim Thorpe, I have a ton of passion invested in the school and a lot of pride as well."For Tamaqua, Emilie Baker will bring much of the same to the Raiders program. Baker is a 2010 graduate of Nativity and competed on the always competitive Green Wave volleyball squad. She then attended DeSales University where she also continued her volleyball career."The past few years I've been coaching travel volleyball under AJ and Maria Serina and I heard about the opening from a girl that played on our team," said Baker. "I wanted to become a head coach and I think Tamaqua is the perfect place for me. I think we can build something special here."Not only are both Jim Thorpe and Tamaqua breaking in new and young coaches, but they're both housing young teams in 2015.Jim Thorpe senior Erin Shigo, who has been on the varsity court since her freshman season is one of the more experienced players in the Schuylkill League. Shigo will be leading the youthful Olympians and is excited about the potential of her club."Since the day Coach Nichols set foot in the building we've been working hard," said Shigo. "She pushes us hard because she knows us and she sees the potential we have. I know I have to be a leader out there, but our younger players have been leading in their own way as well. We have a lot of talented girls on this team."Baker is hoping the Raiders can improve on a one win season a year ago, which is something she definitely can see happening from her young bunch. Tamaqua will bring a whole new approach to the game with fundamentals being the backbone of the program."The advantage we have with our team being so young is that we can teach them fundamentally how to play the game correctly," said Baker. "They won't pick up any bad habits and we can get them playing volleyball the right way. The main goal is to just get out there and compete. We want to be in games and push the better teams in our division."A pretty solid sports theory is that if you play young players and take your lumps for the few first few seasons or so, you should have a pretty solid team by the time those players are juniors.That of course all depends on player development, which is something Nichols is focusing on for the Olympians."I want to have the strongest and most athletic team on the court every night," said Nichols. "That blended with all the fundamentals of the game should equal success for us. We're going to train hard to not only build our volleyball skills, but our muscles as well. That's the kind of program we want here."Young, passionate, and eager are all words that are associated with success. It seems that both the Jim Thorpe and Tamaqua coaches and players possess those attributes, which could possibly mean success is on the horizon for both programs.