Volleyball team gears up for tournament
This year, Utah State University has a young volleyball team – only one senior, a transfer and three juniors, only two of whom played last season.
“I think we’re a little untested,” said Utah State Head Coach Burt Fuller. “We have some young players here. You’re always going to have young players, but we only have one senior.”
Last season the volleyball team graduated several strong players, but this year it is still looking to improve on its record from last year and make it to the NCAA, but it may be a long road for these Aggies.
One obstacle on their road to a better record is the graduation last year of key player Erin Carwright-Davis who, according to Fuller, averaged five kills a game and one and one-half blocks.
“I don’t think we will be able to fill Cartwright’s position,” said Fuller. “What we’re going to have to do is absorb the loss there.”
Fuller also said he is looking to players like juniors Ingrid Roth and Zuzana Cernianska, sophomore Dominique Aresenault, and the lone senior Kindy Peterson.
“Andrea [Delsigne] did a nice job for us [last season], but Dominique did a great job for us in the spring,” Fuller said. “I don’t think we’re losing much there.”
“It’s going to be a different team obviously,” Roth said, “with new players, different positions. But, I think the team we have now we have this other benefit that we didn’t have last year. We’re all really excited to play together and see how it goes.”
Another obstacle Fuller said the Ags have at this point in time is that they are untested.
“It just comes down to being untested,” he said. “You can make guesses in practice, but until you see someone wearing a different jersey, you never know. Regardless of the outcome [of the tournament] it’s gonna at least give us a chance to see different faces on the other side of the net.”
Peterson and Roth both agree and said that they can’t wait to start playing some matches.
“We’ve been playing against each other for so long and we’re really excited to get out there,” Roth said.
Fuller says that the pre-season will work out the bugs for the players and help him decide who will play where.
“We have some question marks that need to be filled. That’s why we play our pre-conference matches,” he explained.
This weekend the team heads to Reno for the SBC/Sands Regency Tournament. They will first face sixth-ranked Stanford on Friday before going against Nevada and St. Mary’s on Saturday.
“This weekend is going to be a big weekend for us,” said Fuller. “Stanford’s good, St. Mary’s was a tournament team last year, Reno is a very good athletic team as well. It’s going to be a real test for us.”
“We want to go 3-2 in our first five games,” said Roth. “We play some big games and we’re really excited for that.”
Another obstacle that has haunted the Aggies this past week is injuries. Two all-freshman performers last year, sophomores Beth Hodge and Mari Ruddick are both out with injuries.
Hodge is suffering from stress fractures and is expected to be out for the season. Ruddick, on the other hand, has been suffering from back injuries, but Fuller believes that she will only be out for a couple weeks.
Freshmen Monarisa Ale, Amanda Fahnestock and Amanda Orgill are some of the team members Fuller expects to step up this weekend and play well in place of Hodge and Ruddick.
“Our new kids, we’re gonna have to have them playing for us somewhere. Three of our freshman coming in that are going to have to do some things for us,” he said. “Those are the kids that are going to get some opportunities this weekend.”
-aedmunds@cc.usu.edu