Women's volleyball team ready to improve

By Margo Consul

Balls are flying and players are swinging in the Leavy Center as Santa Clara volleyball has begun. With six incoming freshmen, the squad is young, but the freshmen have had a strong start and have brought a new energy to the coaching staff.

"Everything is new to these freshmen with how we want them to do things and how we want them to train and perform. From that aspect it has been exciting for us," assistant coach Dustin Moore said following a team practice.

Last year Santa Clara made it to the second round of the NCAA tournament and finished 17-9 overall and tied for fourth in the West Coast Conference with a record of 8-6. The team also lost five seniors at the end of the season.

"It's exciting for us to have girls coming in as freshmen getting an opportunity to play a lot and to contribute," Moore said. "We're about to get into conference here and having those girls play a lot really helps us into conference. Having them have some experience and being able to come off of the bench and contribute, it'll be huge for us."

A team with experienced freshmen will be beneficial from here on out, as Santa Clara begins conference play soon.

The battle for the WCC title is for any team's taking, as Moore said no team thus far has proved its superiority in early season action.

"Everybody has kind of played some good teams, beat some good teams, lost to some good teams, nobody has a really stellar record going into conference," he said.

However, to get closer to the conference title, the Broncos are going to focus on getting their offensive lineup set.

"We're really trying to find our identity offensively as a team, which isn't ideal at this point, but we're working towards it," Moore said.

The team's goal is to play at a high level on a consistent basis and to reach the full potential that the young squad has.

Individually, Santa Clara freshmen have not shied away from the record books. Freshman starter Katherine Douglas currently leads the team in kills (117) and digs (109).

"[Douglas] has had her ups and downs offensively, but for the most part she has been a really steady player for us," Moore said.

Santa Clara has also gotten immediate offensive production from redshirt freshman Dana Knudsen, whose 96 kills rank third highest on the team.

"I think they are all going to contribute in their own way," Moore said. "It's hard to say who is going to be the standout. I think [head coach John Wallace] would agree we have some kids who are going to be real good for a long time for us, so that's exciting."

Throughout their coaching career at Santa Clara, Wallace, Moore and staff have developed several players into All-Americans, the most recent being three-time All-American alumna Anna Cmaylo, class of 2009. Like Cmaylo, many of these players are California natives.

Of the current team, four of the six incoming freshmen and 12 of the 16 players on the roster are from California.

"The way recruiting is going on, the girls are committing so early on, as early as the end of their sophomore year," said Moore. "You don't really have the official visits anymore and so to get to get a kid out to see what the [Santa Clara] campus is like and what you are all about is tough,"

"It's much easier when someone can drive to the campus or take the weekend cheap flight up from L.A. to see what we're about, as opposed to try to get someone to pay their way from the East Coast or Midwest," he added. "It's not that we don't want to do it, its just the way recruiting process is. It's a lot more manageable to get kids who are in California or western states."

The Broncos open conference play away on October 2 against San Francisco at 7 p.m. Santa Clara's first conference home match will be on October 15 against Portland at 7 p.m in the Leavey Center.

Contact Margo Consul at (408) 551-1918 or mconsul@scu.edu.