For the last 18 days the Idaho women’s volleyball team has been practicing hard at fall camp, preparing for this moment and it’s finally here.
Vandal setter Meredith Coba sets the ball up for a spike during practice Wednesday in the Memorial Gym. The Vandals will be playing the Wyoming invite today at 10 a.m. against Montana State, 6 p.m. against Wyoming, 10 a.m. against Drake University and finally will take on Stetson University at 4 p.m. All matches will be held in Laramie, Wyo.
The Vandals open the season Friday on the road at the UniWyo Wyoming Invite in Laramie, Wyo.
“The transition from last year to this year was actually very smooth. All the newcomers are comfortable here and working hard,” said Idaho junior middle blocker Alyssa Schultz. “The one thing that I notice about what’s different from last year is our defense. I mean the back-row defense were flying around more and touching the ball more.”
Schultz enters a new season with a career hitting percentage superior to any other player in school history at .325 and Preseason WAC Player of the Year honors.
Schultz will work with Taylor Wilkinson to secure Idaho’s middle. Wilkinson earned WAC All-Tournament team honors for her late season performance last year to help Idaho reach its first WAC championship match. The two middle blockers will take team leadership responsibilities without two-time second-team all-WAC middle Alex Sele.
“Those are tough shoes to fill but Taylor is more than equipped to fill them,” Schultz said. “She’s working hard every day, she makes me better and I make her better. She’s really smart, makes good decisions and she’s always outworking everyone else.”
Meanwhile, redshirt sophomore setter Meredith Coba will take over the primary setter role after sitting behind Jennifer Feicht and Ryann Carter for the past two seasons.
“I’ve worked two years to get to this spot, so I’ve been waiting and it feels good that the time is finally here for me to run the offense,” Coba said.
Idaho coach Debbie Buchannan said ball control is a strength of the team but passing is something the team needs to work on. The defensive specialists include sophomore Jenna Ellis and freshman Terra Varney who will work together to fill in the gaps. Ellis put up impressive numbers last season leading the team in ace percentage at .29 per set.
“We’re trying to get Jenna and Terra to take more court so outsides have less court and they can just go and swing but it’s going to be a little bit of a process to get more comfortable with that,” Buchanan said.
In the opening tournament in Wyoming, the Vandals face four opponents, two of which finished the 2012 season with losing records. The Vandals will face Montana State in the first match followed by Wyoming, Drake and Stetson. Montana State finished 15-14 last season, Wyoming finished at 25-11, Drake at 5-24 and Stetson with just four wins and 31 losses.
“I think that any team in the preseason comes at us as a challenge, because most of the teams we haven’t played before, so whenever we play teams we want to compete our hardest,” Coba said. “We just want to go out there and play our game. That’s what our focus is on during preseason, controlling what we can control on our side of the court.”
Aaron Wolfe can be reached at [email protected]