Learning Experience
August 24, 2007 07:58 AM | General
August 24, 2007
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – If nothing else, the 2006 season was a harsh learning experience for the West Virginia University volleyball team. The Mountaineers struggled through a 3-28 season, going 2-12 in Big East.
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| Senior Abby Tevis led the team in kills last year as a junior despite playing only 24 matches.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
However, as the 2007 season begins this afternoon at the Morehead State University Tournament in Morehead, Ky., senior outside hitter Abby Tevis says there is plenty of reason for optimism.
“Everyone is really excited to play. We return nine players this season and we have been playing really well in preseason and we’ve all been working really hard,” Tevis said. “We have a lot of young talent and we’re looking forward to playing against someone else.”
That new talent will look to fill the void left by the graduation of Gina Cusanelli and record-setting libero Aurora Ebert-Santos. Look for senior Ashley Pappas or sophomore Marissa Meyers to see time at Cusanelli’s old post on the right side. True freshman Bonnie West will start at the vacated libero spot (defensive specialist).
“Bonnie (West) is a freshman that has come in and she’s going to start right off the bat. She’s a great player,” Tevis said. “All the sophomores are going to get playing time and are going to help us so it’s going to be a total team effort.”
Tevis, who started all 24 matches she appeared in last year, admits that 2006 was a struggle for everyone involved in the program.
“It was very hard. There is a point where you just can’t say anything else. You keep saying ‘we have nothing to lose and we’ve already come this far and we’re the underdogs,’ but after a while you just can’t say anything else,” Tevis said. “You just have to keep the best attitude you can about it. Now that it’s over I think it helped us. It gave us more of a drive to not have that happen again.”
Tevis, who had a season-high 24 kills against Akron, notes that the Mountaineers would often play to the level of their competition last year.
“It was weird because we would play really well against really good teams and then we would have like our worst games against teams that we should have beaten,” Tevis said. “Teams like St. Francis and Robert Morris we had always beaten in previous years and they killed us. It was embarrassing and hard to take.”
As if the on-court struggles weren’t enough, Tevis had to overcome the adversity of breaking her pinky and ring finger in the Mountaineers’ season-opening match against Oakland.
“That was pretty much the worst experience ever for me. It was the first game of our tournament here and I went for a ball. As soon as it hit my hand I knew,” Tevis said. “I looked at my fingers and they had popped out the other way. I knew that I would be out for a long while and then I went to the doctor and they said it would be six to eight weeks.”
After sitting out just seven matches, Tevis made a quick and strong recovery. She was back by mid-season and went on to lead West Virginia with 297 kills.
While Tevis admits that last year was a learning experience in a variety of ways, she says the importance of preseason workouts and conditioning was something all team members took to heart.
“We learned that preseason is a big part of it. You have to work during the summer to get ready for that. Last season we came in and nobody was ready,” Tevis said. “We were all out of shape and that carried into the season. It snowballed after that so we learned that preseason is a major key.”
That hasn’t been a problem in 2007. Tevis says the off-season effort has improved dramatically this year.
“The spring helped us and that carried into everyone wanting to play together a lot in the summer. We were very focused on the upcoming season throughout the spring and summer,” Tevis said. “Our strength staff commented that we were one of the hardest working teams and that we do more than a lot of other volleyball teams across the country.”
As off-season conditioning and spring practice began Tevis says the game started to be fun again. That infectious attitude is something Tevis and the other Mountaineers hope will carry on throughout the season.
“In the spring I feel like we did very well. We started playing like we wanted to play,” Tevis said. “We started having fun with it again and tried to block what happened in the fall out of our minds. That is the attitude we need.”
Tevis said the team will embrace the underdog role this season, while trying to prove preseason prognosticators wrong.
“We need to establish our rotations and go out there and play hard. People don’t expect us to win anything. We are big underdogs this year and people think they are going to walk all over us,” Tevis said. “We just have to make a stand. We have nothing to lose this season and we have to play like it.”
West Virginia will face Southern Illinois today at 2 p.m. before battling tournament host school Morehead State tonight at 7 p.m. The Mountaineers will then conclude the tournament Saturday at 2 p.m. against Towson. Tevis says that winning two out of three this weekend or getting a coveted sweep would go a long way toward igniting a much improved 2007 campaign.
“Confidence is the biggest thing. These tournaments are where we need to start,” Tevis said. “They get us ready to play our Big East matches, which we really need to improve upon to qualify for the Big East tournament.”
The top eight teams in the 15-team league make the Big East tournament. While Tevis would like nothing more than to finish her senior season in post-season play, more than anything she looks forward to one more year playing the game she loves.
“This will be my last year playing an organized sport. I obviously want to qualify for the Big East tournament but I also want us to have fun when we play,” Tevis said. “I want us to beat some people and have a winning attitude. That’s the way I like to play.”
After a year of learning through trying times, look for veteran leadership an influx of young talent, a commitment to hard work and a winning attitude to lead to a marked improvement for the women’s volleyball team in 2007.
