Head Coach Anne Kordes is serious when she believes the volleyball team will have the hardest non-conference schedule in the country this coming fall.
What’s on tap for the Billikens before they begin their regular season? A match against the team that lost in the Division-I NCAA Championship finals, Stanford University, and a match against the team that beat Stanford in the NCAA Championship finals, Penn State University.
In addition to playing the top two teams in the country, the Billikens’ fall schedule calls for matches against top-ranked schools such as Middle Tennessee State (a sweet-16 team in the same tournament), William and Mary and Purdue, among others.
“When you look at the A-10 as a conference, we’re down the ladder with regards to competitiveness,” Kordes said. “We believe that playing these high caliber teams will put us in the position to be tested and ready to go.”
The idea behind the tough schedule is that better teams will do a better job exploiting the Billikens’ weaknesses. “Sure-win” matches against weaker teams, like some SLU will see in the A-10, serve as nothing more than morale boosters.
Kordes said if the team wants to be in a position to be in the top 25 nationally, then it has to have a strong schedule to facilitate that goal. Along the way, she hopes the team will pick up key wins against top programs.
“We’ve got a competitive team, and facing-off against the best teams is what [the players] want,” Kordes said. “We’re not worried about the outcome; we want to play a team that, if we win, we’re going to get ranked.”
When it comes time to play these though matches, Kordes said the Billikens won’t win by overpowering the other teams. Success will stem from SLU’s ability to play strong defense and serve aggressively.
Kordes hopes the high level of play from other teams will be contagious, forcing the Bills to find ways to score, move quickly and, ultimately, play to their full potential.
“We had the opportunity to go to a tournament that would have been a cake-walk, but a more competitive tournament came up in Utah, and when I spoke to the team, it wasn’t even a question; they wanted to play the best,” Kordes said.
In the fall 2007 season, the Bills missed out on the NCAA tournament by one game, falling in the semifinals to Xavier in five games. This year, Kordes said the team will settle for nothing less than an A-10 Conference victory and a bid to the NCAA Championships.
“This team is a really unique group, and they’re really determined to do something special this year.”
