With the possibility of hosting Regionals, the Spartan women’s volleyball team is bouncing back from their loss to West Florida.
The Spartan team took on West Florida on Oct. 19 for the South Region Crossover hosted here at Tampa.
During this match, the Spartans went 1-3 with the end result being a loss.
Senior middle blocker Danielle Selkridge and freshman libero Jen Scholz both believe the match against West Florida was not one of their strongest games offensively or defensively.
“I just think that some of us offensively were kind of off,” stated Selkridge. “Usually when all of us are on offensively and defensively we tend to win.”
“I agree with Danielle, defensively I guess our passes weren’t as on because when our passes are on we can run the middle for offensive plays, but offensively we were hitting balls out and hitting balls right to people so that doesn’t help us,” added Scholz.
“It only makes it easier on the other team because they aren’t out of system so they can run whatever they want, pretty much, which makes us stuck on the defensive and you can’t defend every single ball, it’s really hard.”
To help bounce back from this loss, the volleyball team is going back to basics and getting drilled to make sure they can fully understand what they can improve.
“We are just getting drilled,” said Scholz. “The defenders are getting pulled aside during practice and are getting told how we have to step up and get the balls that people don’t think you can get. No one else is going to get those balls so you have to pick up the defense and go for everything and not just the balls that come right to you.”
“From the offensive side we just keep on focusing on little details,” added Selkridge. “Offensively and defensively we are just working on more communication and more of those details so as a team we can just get back to the gym and focus and work harder.”
Even though the loss was a minor setback for the team, it was a wake up call for them to realize that even though they are a very strong team, there is still the possibility that they can lose and they have to take that into consideration before and during each match.
“I think it shook us in the fact that we can lose and that if we don’t come out and compete every night then that can happen; we can lose,” said Selkridge. “So I think it just refocuses us and helps us be ready and since we can lose we need to step it up in every game we play. “
Coach Catanach agrees with Selkridge that the loss against West Florida was a little bit of a wake up call for the team but it also helps them prepare for the upcoming games in a different way.
“I think we needed a little punch, something to change,” said Catanach. “Since that point we have played very well in practice and matches. I’m not saying our problems are solved, we haven’t corrected everything but I’m saying we are a better team for that match.”
When asked about his take on how the team is coming back from this loss, Catanach is happy that the team is focusing hard to improve with the rest of the season up ahead.
“They are much more receptive to things we need to correct and change and that’s a good sign,” said Catanach. “Anytime you beat people the first time through, the team that wins makes less adjustments than the team that loses so now we have a chance to make adjustments and look at what we did wrong and make those corrections.”
Knowing that the rest of the matches left are in conference, the team is preparing to meet each team a second time and hopefully coming out on top again this time through.
“It’s our second time through with each team. We just started that with Florida Tech,” said Catanach.
“During the second time through we have to be proactive and look at the things they got better at and prepare for them to try to defend us differently than the first time through. We break down the videos and look at their differences in rotations and tendencies and adjust ourselves to do the things we do that will be different than the last time we played them.”
“Yeah, we have been watching videos on them a lot,” added Scholz. “Each game is specific to each opponent, we’re not just going out there just to play volleyball, we are going to compete and do what we can to get them out of sync and win.”
The women’s volleyball team recently won their past four games after West Florida and are looking to continue this winning streak as they play more and more conference matches.
Their next match is Nov. 2 again Saint Leo and their next home game is Nov. 9 against Nova Southeastern.
Paige Shallcross can be reached at paige.shallcross@spartans.ut.edu.