The 2009 season is looking eerily similar to 2008 for this year’s volleyball team.
In 2008, the team, then 8-4, stormed into Atlantic 10 Conference play after facing the No. 1 team in the nation, Penn State. The Bills would sweep conference and end up advancing to the second round of the NCAA tournament. This year, the team is 7-5; they’ve faced Penn State, and now, unlike then, they are nationally ranked. For head coach Anne Kordes and the Billikens, 2008 was not enough. They want more.
Though conference play looms large over the team, they are already thinking about NCAA play. And, while sweeping conference and winning their third conference championship in four years is a major goal, the team is aiming to advance to the Sweet Sixteen, or further, in the NCAA tournament. Last year, the team suffered a disheartening loss against Michigan in the second round. The team, then and now, is expected to do great things in conference and post-season play.
“We believe that if we are playing our best, these teams shouldn’t beat us,” Anne Kordes said about her conference foes. “We have not put pressure, or put a goal, on going undefeated. All we care about is getting into the NCAA and advancing. If we go undefeated along the way, that’s great.”
Senior Whitney Roth echoed that sentiment, “It’s not necessarily a goal to go undefeated. ?Our goal is to win conference and the conference tournament and from that point on to advance deep in the NCAA tournament. ?The A10 will be good this year and we know that there will be no matches we can afford to coast through this year.”
This year’s A-10 lineup will see the Billikens taking on some of the best in volleyball. Dayton, an annual foe for SLU in any sport, is 10-2 with wins over No. 19 Purdue and Connecticut. Duquense (9-5) squeezed out a win against Princeton last week and has seen foes like Pittsburgh and Michigan State. Another hard match will be against Xavier, who at 7-6 has put away Rutgers and Murray State, and has taken on Tennessee, Notre Dame and Michigan.
“[Going against Dayton] is going to be huge. What Dayton’s done in non-conference, it tells you they are legit,” Kordes said. “Duquense beat a Big East team. [The A-10] is beating big teams across the board. And everyone knows that if they can beat Saint Louis, it would be huge for them. I do believe that every match is going to be tough.”
The Billikens will have one weapon that could trump all this time around, though: experience. Five of the Billikens were on last year’s NCAA squad and several received A-10 Conference honors for their contributions on the court. Kordes says the ability to focus on their opponent, and not on building confidence, will help push the Billikens to the NCAA tournament.
Roth adds that the will to win may play a role for Billiken success this season.
“We want to win the A10, but not because we were predicted too. ?We want to win because we know we are a great team and we keep that in mind every day when we go into practice and work hard. ?If we work as hard as we can in practice and play to our potential, we know it will pay off in games,” she said.
And it’s always easier to play hard when it’s your last chance. Roth, along with Sammi McCloud, Bridget Fonke, Sally Warning, and Whitney Behrens, will be graduating in the spring. Should they fail to advance past the second round of the NCAA, a void will be left on an otherwise impressive resume.
“The fact that this is my last season just makes me happy to have the chance to come into practice and play every day with these girls,” Roth said. “I don’t want to take my time left for granted and since a loss in the post-season means my career is over, I will do whatever I can to keep playing just one more match.”
SLU takes on Rhode Island (5-6) Sept. 25. SLU leads the series 7-1 since joining the A-10. On Sept. 26, the Billikens square off with the Rams of Fordham (8-7) who have won six straight but have never beaten SLU.
