With their season recently coming to an end, the women’s volleyball team has a lot to be proud of. Not only did they win their conference and regional titles, they finished their season ranked number two in the nation and had three all-Americans in Berkley Whaley, Marissa Lisenbee and Holly Reschke and two academic all-Americans, Reschke and Meagan Burke.
In addition, Whaley was named the SSC Conference Player of the Year. Even after their unfortunate loss to Concordia during the national tournament, the Spartans had a very successful season.
Looking back on the tournament, Coach Chris Catanach saw many strengths and weaknesses from the team he is hoping to improve on for next season.
“The tournament was really exciting. During the regional round we played really well and it went how we hoped, so we enjoyed that,” Catanach said. “The rounds at nationals are not seeded but are on rotation and we drew the other top ranked team so we played them in the quarter finals instead of the finals. We are very disappointed in that loss; we didn’t reach our goal, we failed there.”
Even with the season ending in not the best circumstances, the team definitely had many great accomplishments this past season.
“We accomplished a lot of positive things,” Catanach said. “We had great player development; we finished the season ranked number two; we were conference champs; we went 16-0 in conference play; we hosted the regional event, and we won the regional tournament. So we had some big accomplishments this season.”
On top of a great season athletically, the Spartan team had some great accomplishments academically.
“Our team GPA ended up being a 3.46 this semester, which is really good,” Catanach said. “Because the players had to take all of their exams before we left for the national tournament, they were overloaded and stressed so it is great we ended on that note academically. We also had a couple players that were named academic all-Americans, which is another great academic accomplishment.”
It is safe to say that the women’s volleyball team did some great things this season but there are still areas that Coach Catanach would like to improve on for the future.
“Well we can only go one position higher. We would like to win it so that is one thing we would like to improve on,” Catanach said.
“Our players still have to get better. We have to develop a mindset that we can win and beat this power that we have lost to. We would like to win the conference again and we would like to win the region again. We can improve a lot but the biggest thing is to win and be number one.”’
To be able to reach the ultimate goal of being number one, the Lady Spartans will be participating in some exciting things during their off season. Not only will they be working in the gym and on the court, but they will also be traveling.
“We have our normal spring training that we will do,” Catanach said. “But every four years you are allowed to travel overseas and this is our year to do it, so we will be doing that and competing against international teams for 12 days in May.”
Although the end of the volleyball team’s season was not what they exactly wanted to accomplish, they had a lot of very impressive accomplishment, growth and goals that were achieved.
The Spartans have a lot to look forward to within the next few months and their upcoming season will be exciting to watch.
Paige Shallcross can be reached at paige.shallcross@spartans.ut.edu.