Young and inexperienced, men's club volleyball struggling

By Margo Consul

The men's club volleyball team is not off to a strong start this season, and luck isn't on their side either.

Injuries, no permanent coach and a young squad have put this team up against all odds.

"It's very much a mental game and we have a strong team," Co-president Phil White said. "What it really comes down to is experience, and we are a very young team."

With a 0-3 record overall, the Broncos are looking to improve as they progress through the season.

There is a significant age issue. Only two seniors are on the team, and one of which is a returning player. Three sophomores, three freshmen and a junior make up the rest of the club.

In addition, most of the players have not had more than a year or two of experience prior to Santa Clara.

"Because of inexperience, we don't know how to bounce back from making mistakes or bounce back from losing a game," White said.

Then there is the issue of the coach leaving mid-season. Interim Head Coach Georg Gasteiger filled the position in December during his time here as a graduate student from Austria.

Gasteiger played professionally for the Austrian national team, before coming to Santa Clara.

He has seen how the lack of mental toughness has affected the team's play against rivals such as University of California Davis and Cal Poly.

"The problem is when we are having a bad time, it takes five, six, seven points to get back into the game, and sometimes that's too much even though we are pretty good at putting pressure on the other team," Gasteiger said.

It is difficult for a team to pressure their opponents when pressured with keeping themselves healthy.

White, who was a returning starting middle blocker, tore his ACL and meniscus during the Cal Poly match, which was the first match of the season. The Broncos would go on to lose that match in three games, with scores of 18-25, 22-25, 17-25.

The injuries have taken the already small nine-player roster down to about only six or seven healthy players, limiting options during game time.

"With our luck, we have had an injury every two weeks, and if that continues, the season will be over pretty soon," Gasteiger said.

The Broncos were able to take Chico State all the way to five games but lost by making too many errors during crucial moments.

"We definitely could have beat them any day if we had played consistently," White said. "But what it came down to was they made fewer errors than we did."

The scores against Chico were 18-25, 25-20, 22-25, 25-19, 13-15.

"There were times when they played like professionals and then there were times when they played like under-thirteen-year-olds," Gasteiger said. "During the whole game I think they did a pretty good job of blocking and defending, so they really had a hard time making a sideout on us. The problem was we had a hard time making sideouts."

The Broncos will be traveling to Berkeley on Friday to take on Cal's team and desperately needing a victory.

"We are going to have to be strong in the middle," White said. "We need to set up so that we can have much court to work with so we can score."

"The first game I think they lost 3-0. The second...and the last one they lost 3-2, so I think its time for them to win 3-2 and to continue like this," Gasteiger said.

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