MELBOURNE, Fla. (Volleyball) – With the 2015 season opening on Friday, the Florida Tech volleyball team is excited to erase last season's results and start with a clean slate. Fourth-year head coach
Amy O'Brien believes her squad is ready to improve on the previous campaign's wins total based on the team's progress in the preseason.
“We were pleasantly surprised with the shape of the team when they arrived on campus, returners and newcomers,” said O'Brien. “It allowed us to focus more on practice early on and we could tell right-off-the-bat that the girls worked well together and had great chemistry. Everyone on the team has done a fantastic job of stepping up.”
The Panthers return the majority of their roster from last season, losing just five players to graduation. O'Brien is looking to these returners to have key roles for the team this season.
“We are expecting
Kim Juriga, on the right side, to be big for us this year,” O'Brien stated. “She did a great job in the preseason matches putting the ball away and setting up a strong block. Our outside hitter
Marilyn Dick has been consistent for us at the pin, finishing our attacks. Senior setter
Ashtin Truesdale allows us to run a fast paced offense and is great at finding her teammates. We also expect
Becca Bower to be strong for us at Libero. She's done an excellent job of being all over the court this preseason.
“We also have four newcomers this season who could contribute at some time during the season, including freshman
Olivia Hersey,” added O'Brien. “Coming in as a young player, Olivia has adjusted quickly to the speed of the game and will be huge for us in the middle.”
This year the Panthers open the season with two straight weekends of tournaments, six games over eight days starting with this weekend's Flagler Invitational on Sept. 4-5 and next weekend's Panther Invitational on Sept. 11-12. With so many games in such a short time, O'Brien needed to ensure her team could stay fresh during a very intense eight days.
“In order to withstand six games in eight days, we really had to make sure we did a good job of conditioning the girls over the summer and as soon as they arrived on campus,” said O'Brien. “In addition to conditioning we also had to prepare them to face six different styles of play. We mixed things up in practice, forcing them to face a variety of offenses and defenses and to adjust quickly.”
The effort by the team in practice showed in the Panthers' two preseason matchups. FIT swept Eastern Florida State in five sets and defeated Webber International four sets to one. Over the two scrimmages, Dick paced the team with 22 kills while Truesdale recorded 44 assists.
The team showed much improvement on defense from the previous season. The Panthers impacted their opponents' game plan, forcing the two teams into a combined 60 errors and blocked 23 total attempts. Against Webber, Florida Tech held the Warriors to a hitting percentage of .008 percent.
Florida Tech will need to continue its strong play as it heads into this weekend's Flagler Invitational in St. Augustine, Florida.
“Going into this weekend we need to make sure that we are focused and playing hard,” stated O'Brien. “All of the teams this weekend are from some really tough conferences. They will all be very good competition for us this weekend.”
The Panthers kickoff the invitational against Dominican College (N.Y.) at 1 p.m. ET on Friday, before going toe-to-toe with Anderson and host Flagler on Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. ET, respectively.
Links to live video and stats will be provided for each match at FloridaTechSports.com.
