Ags net tauted recruiting class
On the heels of a disappointing 13-19 year, women’s volleyball Head Coach Grayson DuBose and Assistant Coach Shawn Olmstead went looking for new talent to help Utah State improve on its sixth-place showing in the Western Athletic Conference.
“Olmstead is our recruiting coordinator and my assistant coach,” DuBose said, “and that guy has done a wonderful job finding athletes that can help us compete in the WAC.”
What they unearthed is the second-ranked recruiting class in the WAC. Six high school players, one four-year transfer and two junior college transfers make up the class, and along with redshirt junior Melissa Osterloh, give DuBose 10 newcomers. DuBose called the infusion of talent “unique” in the history of USU volleyball, saying, “There have been some really nice athletes that played volleyball here. It was kind of nice to put six of them together in one class.”
DuBose said the greater depth of this year’s team is already helping in practice situations.
“The biggest thing they have allowed us to do is compete at a pretty high level in practice because we’ve been able to have depth at every position. When a kid gets injured, we can plug someone else in and we don’t really lose a step,” he said.
One of the new freshman players is Chelsea Fowles, who will be competing with returning letter-winners Heather Hillier and Dani Schaap for playing time as a setter. In high school, Fowles was named first-team all-league as a junior and senior at San Benito in California.
“I really hope to get all-freshman team if I have the chance,” Fowles said. “There’s a ton of position-specific things I need to work on, and I just hope to focus on those this season. There’s a lot of things that I hear over and over during practice because I’m a setter, just helping out my hitters more and stuff like that.”
One of the hitters Fowles will be playing alongside is Amanda Nielson, probably USU’s best returning player.
“Amanda Nielson is probably the most prominent returning starter we have,” DuBose said.
Nielson was second-team All-WAC last season. Osterloh, who DuBose said did “a real nice job in the summer,” should also figure heavily in the team’s outside hitter plans.
It is the hitters Dubose is most focused on as he tries to guide his team to the top of the WAC.
“We need to improve our kills per game; that was one of the biggest things that jumped out at me,” DuBose said. “We were the third best blocking team in our conference last year behind New Mexico State and Hawaii, so we felt that our blocking system and our block was really good. The area where we lacked was kills per game, so we’re trying to increase that. We have some nice outside hitters: Osterloh, Amanda, Kris Hymas is a transfer from Salt Lake Community College and she’s a really nice volleyball player.”
New assistant coach
The 10 players are not the only newcomers to second-year coach DuBose’s program. Former Aggie volleyball player Taubi Neves joins the coaching staff. Neves graduated from USU in 2004 with a degree in physical education/prephysical therapy. She will handle travel coordination, academic progress and equipment for the team.
“Taubi Neves is a former player recommended to me by my former head coach, a guy named Tom Peterson,” DuBose said. “She’s a great worker, and she’s wonderful to have in the gym. She’s really organized, which helps both Shawn (Olmstead) and myself out a little bit.”
Looking ahead at the schedule, DuBose said, “We’re going to play New Mexico State and we’re going to play Hawaii, and those are really good volleyball teams. We play Utah here at home, and that’s always a nice rivalry match for us.”
USU plays at NMSU on Sept. 20, then hosts the southern Aggies on Oct. 4. The Rainbow Wahine will visit the Spectrum on Oct. 15. The Aggies host the rival Utes Oct. 30 in a nonconference game. The last regular season game of the year before the WAC tournament in Las Cruces, N.M., will be at Hawaii on Nov. 11.