Coming off a season where they reached the finals of the NESCAC championship and qualified for the NCAA tournament, the women's volleyball team will be looking to climb to even greater heights this year with a squad that will feature just three seniors.
It will be a difficult task, though, to improve their results, especially considering that the team finished with an impressive 7−3 conference record and lost three seniors to graduation, most notably star outside hitter Caitlin Updike (LA '11), who was named an American Volleyball Coaches Association Honorable Mention All−American for her standout performance last season.
However, the team is confident that the current members of the squad can step up and fill the void left by last year's graduates.
"She (Updike) was obviously a great player, but we also have a great class of new freshmen," senior outside hitter Cara Spieler said. "We have eight new members of the team, and there are some great outside hitters and some really tall girls, and they'll be able to step up as the season goes along and as we get better as a team."
The Jumbos could have had an even better season last year had they not lost several in−conferencenail−biters late in the season. In particular, the five−set loss to Bowdoin on Oct. 13 was especially heartbreaking, considering that Tufts won the first two sets and lost the fourth set 25−22. If they had won that game, the Jumbos would have finished second in the conference instead of tying for third place, an outcome that would have given them an easier route in the conference tournament.
"This is a new team," said junior setter Kendall Lord, referring to some of the struggles in close games last year. "It's also a young team, but it doesn't look like it. We just have a bunch of amazing freshmen and I'm so excited to get to play with everyone and establish the team unity we need to win."
But last year's disappointments aside, Tufts knows that it will need a new source of offensive firepower after the graduation of Updike, who led the team with 421 kills and 4.05 kills per set, despite missing a portion of the season due to injury. The Jumbos will also be without the services of graduated seniors Nancy Shrodes (LA '11) and Kelly Engelking (LA '11), who contributed 206 and 87 kills, respectively.
However, despite the losses, a strong core team remains, including senior libero, Audrey Kuan, who led the team in service aces last season. Kuan is also the executive online editor of the Daily. Lord compiled an impressive 946 assists, and Spieler, who was second on the team, tallied 267 kills.
"I think the goal for this team is to host and win NESCACs, make it to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament and win at least 30 games," Spieler said. "It's not easy, but we have the talent to do it and we can definitely do better than last year."
The 2011 squad, though, for all its promise, will be tested early and often, as the schedule features several difficult conference games within the first two weeks of the season. One of those is a clash with Williams on Sept. 17; the Ephs took Tufts to a fifth set last year in a very competitive match.
Additionally, beginning with the Sept. 30 game at Bowdoin, seven out of nine games on the calendar will be against NESCAC opponents, making the first two weeks of October a make−or−break time for the Jumbos this season.
"We've trained all summer to get into the best shape possible, because it's like our preseason," Spieler said. "Hopefully our team is deep enough that we can just rotate people in if we get tired. It's actually a good thing to have so many games in a row, because we can get into a good rhythm and really play our best."
